python for microcontrollers

[Kay Schluehr]

Hi Bastard,

one of the main reasons PyPy gets funded by the EU was the promise to
port Python to embedded systems ( but not necessarily very memory
restricted ones ). The project seems to be in a state where the team
tries to get rid of the CPython runtime alltogether and reaching some
autonomy. The idea of providing a Forth backend would fit into the
concept and would be great IMO.

Maybe You should also have a look on the JavaCard platform
specification for inspiration what is possible for an OO language on
time and memory resticted platforms.

http://java.sun.com/products/javacard/specs.html

Since there are vendors that implemented the JVM on smartcards against
SUNs spec and JavaCards are on the market ( not just research
prototypes ) the approach has been proven successfull. For the matter
of memory layout I would naively try to adapt the type inferencer (
annotator in PyPy slang ) and restrict Python to an even more smaller
subset than RPython ( SmartJava does not even support strings. On the
other hand the explicit casting to short and byte types is by no means
braindead ). I currently don't have an idea for memory management and
I'm not even sure about implicit or explicit finalization.

Kay