A software high performance APL interpreter

Abstract

The design of a high performance APL system is presented along with an evaluation of the performance improvement measured on a partial implementation. The system contains a compiler which translates APL into the instructions of a virtual APL machine. Numerous special techniques suitable for optimized interpretation of this virtual machine entirely in software on a System 370 are described. The overhead for executing APL programs has been reduced by a factor ranging between 5 and 10 when compared to conventional interpretive systems.