adding to kernel

[George J. Carrette <GJC at MIT-MC>]

I don't know the exact delivery time for Symbolics new "L" machine,
nor the exact state of CMU spice-lisp, [which is on the front-burner
now for micro-coded implementation on their own machine no?] with
respect to any possible VAX implementation; but I suspect that of
all the lisp implementations planning to support the COMMON-LISP
standard, MIT's NIL is the closest to release. Can I get some
feedback on this?

As far as bucks go "$$$" gee. CPU's that can run lisp are not cheap
in themselves. However, I don't anything concrete about the
marketing of NIL. Here is a cute one, when the New Implementation of Lisp,
becomes the Old Implementation of Lisp, then NIL becomes OIL.
However, right now it is still NEW, so you don't have to worry.

Unstated assumptions (so far) in Common-lisp?
[1] Error-checking CAR/CDR by default in compiled code.
[2] Lispm-featurefull debugging in compiled code.

Maybe this need not be part of the standard, but everbody knows that
it is part of the usability and marketability of a modern lisp.

Here is my guess as to what NIL will look like by the time the UNIX
port is made: Virtual Machine written in SCHEME, with the SCHEME compiler
written in NIL producing standard UNIX assembler. NIL written in NIL,
and the common-lisp support written in NIL and common-lisp. A Maclisp
compatibility namespace supported by functions written in NIL.
VM for unix written in Scheme rather than "C" might seem strange to
some, but it comes from a life-long Unix/C hacker around here who
wants to raise the stakes a bit to make it interesting. You know, one
thing for sure around MIT => If it ain't interesting it ain't going to
get done! <= There being so many other things to do, not to even
mention other, possibly commercial organizations.