Abstract
A commercial product called SNOBOL4+ for the 8086/8088 computer family is described. It implements the entire SNOBOL4 language, and shows reasonable execution speed. Sample programs in the standard SNOBOL4 language reference text which were run on an IBM 360 model 65 execute approximately 10 times slower on an 8088 equipped IBM PC (3.5 times slower on a PC AT).The internal construction of the SNOBOL4 interpreter has been well described elsewhere (Griswold, Ralph E., The Macro Implementation of SNOBOL4. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1972, 310 pages). This note explains some of the design decisions made for this specific implementation. It is hoped that lessons learned the proverbial "hard way" may benefit others when implementing large systems for the 8086/8088. The "lessons" reflect the author's personal bias and experience. Some are conjectural, others resulted from doing things over the "right" way.
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