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The amber machine

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Combinators and Functional Programming Languages (LITP 1985)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 242))

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Abstract

The Amber machine is a stack machine designed as an intermediate language for compiling higher-order languages. The current version is specialized for the Amber language. The machine supports a set of basic and structured data types, functional closures, signals, bitmap graphics, persistent objects and meta-level execution. The latter is needed as the Amber compiler is entirely written in Amber (above the Amber machine level) and needs to switch level when executing a program it has just compiled.

A set of implementation strategies are admissible for this machine, including byte-code interpretation, threaded code interpretation and compilation to native code. The current implementation is based on a byte-code interpreter and a one-space compacting collector, and runs on a Macintosh.

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References

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  2. L.Cardelli: "The Functional Abstract Machine", AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Report TR-107, 1983. Also in "Polymorphism, the ML/LCF/Hope Newsletter", vol I, no. 1, 1983.

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  3. L.Cardelli: "Amber", AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Memorandum, 11271-840924-10TM, 1984.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Luca Cardelli

    Present address: DEC SRC, 130 Lytton Ave, 94301, Palo Alto, CA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. AT&T Bell Laboratories, 07974, Murray Hill, NJ

    Luca Cardelli

Authors
  1. Luca Cardelli
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Editor information

Guy Cousineau Pierre-Louis Curien Bernard Robinet

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© 1986 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Cardelli, L. (1986). The amber machine. In: Cousineau, G., Curien, PL., Robinet, B. (eds) Combinators and Functional Programming Languages. LITP 1985. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 242. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-17184-3_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-17184-3_39

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-17184-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47253-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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