List Processing in Real Time on a Serial Computer (opens in new tab)

List Processing in Real Time on a Serial Computer Baker, Henry G. Jr. A real-time list processing system is one in which the time required by each elementary list operation (CONS, CAR, CDR, RPLACA, RPLACD, EQ, and ATOM in LISP) is bounded by a (small) constant. Classical list processing systems such as LISP do not have this property because a call to CONS may invoke the garbage collector which requires time proportional to the number of accessible cells to finish. The space requirement of a c...