Python CPU? (Re: Python OS)

[Greg Ewing]

Peter Maas wrote:
> The first step would probably be to define a Python OS. Surely no
> CPU speaks Python :)

Currently, no, but... *could* there be one?

In one of my wilder daydreaming moments recently, I got
to wondering what a machine designed from the ground up
to run Python code might be like. I got a vision of a
Python interpreter implemented in microcode, with a few
extra bytecodes for low-level hardware access, with an
OS written in Python running on top of it.

Would it run Python code any faster than an interpreter
running on an off-the-shelf CPU? Possibly not, but it's
not clear that it couldn't, either. In any case, it
would be a fun thing to design, and maybe even to build,
perhaps using an FPGA.

Anyone want to help?

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept,
University of Canterbury,	
Christchurch, New Zealand
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg