Abstract: An embodiment of the invention is a technique for enabling an emulator that emulates an e-mode program to utilize stored data items whose values are stored in native data format in native memory. The emulator fetches an item referenced by the e-mode program. The referenced item comprises a tag field and a data field. The emulator determines whether the tag field of the referenced item indicates that the referenced item is an external reference word (ERW). If the tag field of the referenced item indicates that the referenced item is an ERW, the emulator decodes the ERW to obtain a data type and a pointer. The pointer corresponds to a location of a stored data item in native memory.