Lisp-Assembly

A minimalist Lisp implementation in x86_64 assembly. Note that most of the code is in Dutch, since it was a personal project.

This is a minimalist Lisp implementation, entirely written within x86_64 assembly language and in the Lisp itself. The project was inspired by (and some parts of the implementation are based on) Jones Forth, a Forth implementation also written entirely in (32 bits) x86 assembly language, and a nice example of literate programming.

The basic language is implemented in lisp.nasm. This language is extended using its own primitives in the "standard library" file swail.lisp to a more complete Lisp dialect. The Makefile includes the following commands:

• make # To make the executable, lisp-nasm
• make doe # To run this executable, together with the standard library, giving a prompt.
• make kever # To run the executable in GDB, together with useful command's for debugging (see lisp_gdb.py)
• make proef # To run a few test cases.

Requirements

• A computer with x86_64 processor running Linux.
• A recent version of NASM, the Netwide Assembler, for example version 2.13.
• A linker, for example the ld that is included with GCC.
• (GNU) Make
• Optionally: GDB, the GNU debugger, with Python3 support, for debugging.

Features

• Minimalism
• Built on x86_64 assembly
• Dynamical scoping
• Garbage collection
• Configurable primitives