Pythoniac: Thoughts on a hardware Python processor

[Thomas Heller]

> > Dear All,
> >
> > I have seen the occasional post about creating a specific hardware 'Python
> > Processor', that could then be built and used in programmable logic or the
> > like (Valves, relays, core memory - Pythoniac ;-) - in other words, create
> > a processor that executes Python bytecode directly.  There would be
> > various different reasons for doing this (the 'neat' factor etc...)
> >
> [... Pythoniacity ...]
> >
> > So, Pythoniac: a hardware (well, FPGA(2)...) processor that directly
> > executes Python bytecode.  What do people think about the idea?  Is it
> > really feasible?  I have doubts it would be particularly quick (in the
> > same way I have my doubts about anti-gravity generators... ;-), but it
> > should be fun!
> >
> You will, of course, have to stop the development team from tinkering with
> the bytecode when moving from one major version to another.
The processor will propably programmed in VHDL, but why not program
it in Python, and translate this to VHDL. Pass this through synthesis, and
you get a byte-stream which the host CPU (if there is one) uses to initialize
the FPGA (FPGA's are reprogrammable).
So, basically, a reconfigurable Python Processor hardware in a file
on the host system should be possible.

Thomas