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An Extended Prolog Instruction Set for RISC Processors

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Abstract

Conventional microprocessors and RISC processors do not adequately support the implementaton of logic programming languages. This paper presents extensions of a RISC processors’s instruction set to enable a simplified and more efficient implementation of Prolog. The extensions are very general so that they can be used for most processors.

The first part of the paper gives a short introduction to Prolog implementation techniques. The most common abstract machines are the Warren Abstract Machine and the Vienna Abstract Machine. Both can be implemented using interpretative and compiling techniques. To enable efficient implementation the instruction set of RISC processors should be enhanced by instructions for sequential memory access,iństructions for tag handling and some special instructions. Those instructions can easily be added to existing processors without increasing the cycle time or the cycle count. The extensions are compared to existing microprocessors and special purpose hardware.

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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Krall, A. (1991). An Extended Prolog Instruction Set for RISC Processors. In: Delgado-Frias, J.G., Moore, W.R. (eds) VLSI for Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3752-6_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3752-6_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-6671-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-3752-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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