Kyle is right that there are some limitations to the
kinds of Smalltalk that the Sq-C translator can handle,
but it's great for loops containing numerical operations
(of the kind used in the scientific applications we're
talking about). It's certainly not "limited" to translating
VM code (look at the sound synthesis examples again).
Since the translator is pretty simple, it uses whatever
algorithm design you write in Smalltalk. It would be an
interesting experiment to look at the difference between
a simple look-up-based oscillator (like the one currently
implemented) and a fancier table-free fast design such as
James McCartney's (described in a letter in Computer Music
Journal a year or so ago). I see no reason that the 
translated version should be much slower than the native
C version.

stp

_ Stephen Travis Pope
_ Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE)
_ Dept. of Music, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
_ stp at create.ucsb.edu, http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp/