ISPMET: a study in automatic emulator generation

This positional paper describes progress toward developing a translator from Bell and Newell's ISP architectural language to META-4 microcode. The syntax-directed method of parsing ISP source text is due to Irons and is briefly reviewed. The differences between ordinary compiler and microcompiler design are studied with particular emphasis on the code generator. The limitations of ISP as a language for automatic emulator generation are explored with a view toward evolving suitable syntactic constructs.