On the plus side, the 704 did multiplications and divisions. https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainfr... gives it about 4,000 multiplications or divisions per second. I think that’s quite a bit faster than a 6502, on 36 bit words, but you don’t need 36-bit arithmetic for a LISP.
It also had floating point, but you don’t need that for a LISP, either.
”The current basic LISP system uses about 12,000 of the 32,000 memory of the IBM 704.”
The 704 was 36 bits, so that 12,000 was 54 kilobytes.
Speed-wise, the 704 had more and larger registers, but ran slower than a 6502 (about 40 kHz for a 704 according to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/704/24-6661-2_704_Manual_1955.p... vs about a MHz for typical 6502s)
On the plus side, the 704 did multiplications and divisions. https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainfr... gives it about 4,000 multiplications or divisions per second. I think that’s quite a bit faster than a 6502, on 36 bit words, but you don’t need 36-bit arithmetic for a LISP.
It also had floating point, but you don’t need that for a LISP, either.