Porting Issues

[mikeb1@aol.com]

Without violating trade secrets, can someone explain the process of porting a
Lisp implementation? I have imagined that all that was required was to
re-target the code-emitter of a more-or-less generic compiler, along with
hand-compilation of a kernel set of special forms. I know this is naive, but
is it "too" naive?

In the case of MCL, how does the interface to the Toolbox complicate the
port? Is the Macintosh-specific part of MCL too specific to be easily ported
to other windowing platforms, such as (cringe) MS Windows?

Would a hypothetical port of an MCL-like environment be better off using
generic CLIM rather than Mac-specific interface toolkits?

(I am not volunteering to do anything. Inquiring mind, you know.)

Mike Blackstone