Interpretive execution of real-time control applications

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Abstract
Interpretive execution has often been regarded as too slow for real-time control applications. Assembly language implementations, however, may exhaust available memory long before running out of machine cycles. For such applications, interpretation of a virtual machine language (VML) is attractive if it yields substantial memory savings at a tolerable cost in execution time. This paper discusses the design of a VML and interpreter which have been used to implement a real-time control application. Performance is evaluated relative to an assembly language version of the same problem. The assembly language version executed 4.8 times faster than the interpretive version, but required 31% more memory. Space compaction is achieved by making basic operations in the application area primatives of the VML. The interpreter simulates a computer whose machine language is the VML. In addition to conserving memory, this approach can facilitate the implementation of a high-level programming language on a variety of minicomputers.

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