ByteLisp and its Alto implementation

This paper describes in detail the most interesting aspects of ByteLisp, a transportable Lisp system architecture which implements the Interlisp dialect of Lisp, and its first implementation, on a microprogrammed minicomputer called the Alto. Two forthcoming related papers will deal with general questions of Lisp machine and system architecture, and detailed measurements of the Alto ByteLisp system described here. A highly condensed summary of the series was published at MICRO-11 in November 1978.