Tiny/small/minimalist Python?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <468997c7$0$327$e4fe514c at news.xs4all.nl>,
Irmen de Jong  <irmen.NOSPAM at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>Paul Rubin wrote:
>> rtk <oneelkruns at hotmail.com> writes:
>>> FYI.. I wanted a simple version of Python to run on an ancient DEC
>>> Alpha box.  I got VMS Python 2.5 up and running but it is too slow to
>>> use.  It takes *minutes* to get the interpreter prompt after typing
>>> 'python'! 
>> 
>> Something is wrong.  Maybe it's trying to DNS itself and timing out,
>> or something like that.
>
>Something is definately wrong.
>
>Back in the days my port of Python to the Commodore Amiga machine ran
>quite comfortably on a 50 mhz CPU with 4 Mb of RAM. (ok ok it was
>Python 1.5.2, that has to be said).
>Python started in about 5 seconds on that Amiga if I remember
>correctly. I'm quite sure your 'ancient' DEC Alpha box is way more
>powerful than my Amiga back then.
>
>--Irmen

Me, too.

I'm all for Lua--I began promoting it over ten years ago.  However,
I was also working on Alphas at about that time, as well as VMS, and
of course with Python.  While I don't recall that I ever had occasion
to test Python under VMS for Alpha much, I've used every other 
combination quite a bit.  Something's fishy about this report of a
minute-long launch-time.