2 ms·

I read this was semi-standard memory management in the early lisp machine days, because that gc was so slow.

• bitwize 4y ago
  Early Lisp (even pre-lispm) had no GC at all -- it just allocated until it ran out. Memory reclamation was done by saving the heap to tape and then reading it back -- only live objects were saved. So it was kind of GC with extra steps; the first GC algorithms removed the steps.
  • User23 4y ago
    To this day the Common Lisp standard doesn’t require GC.
  • lispm 4y ago
    Nah, Lisp had GC in 1960 already. McCarthy invented the mark & sweep GC. Lisp I Programmers Manual, 1960 https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%20I%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP... Chapter 6.3, Page 95, The Free-Storage List and the Garbage Collector