<div dir="ltr"><div>PIC Smalltalk does much of this. But it translates everything to assembler.</div><a href="http://www.huv.com/uSeeker/smalltalk/pic.html">http://www.huv.com/uSeeker/smalltalk/pic.html</a><br><div><br></div>
<div>Karl</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 12:19 AM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jecel@merlintec.com" target="_blank">jecel@merlintec.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Tim Rowledge wrote:<br>
<div class="im">> On 29-11-2013, at 1:18 PM, Doug Jones wrote:<br>
><br>
> > <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/214379695/micro-python-python-for-microcontrollers" target="_blank">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/214379695/micro-python-python-for-microcontrollers</a><br>
><br>
> >> The microcontroller is clocked at 168MHz and has 1MiB flash and 192KiB RAM,<br>
> >> which is plenty for writing complex Python scripts.<br>
> Umm, not really. That's a bit tight, rather slow, and likely to disappoint. At least, for<br>
> anything we currently think of as Squeak. Now, a simple (it would have to be very<br>
> simple to save space) vm running a tiny Spoon based image *might* be possible<br>
> and even useful. The smallest machine I've ever run a "normal" Smalltalk system<br>
> on was the Active Book, which had a whole 1Mb or Ram, though that did have to<br>
> serve the OS, provide the screen buffer, and host a Fax storage filing system. And<br>
> it *was* only a 8MHz ARM2 cpu.<br>
<br>
</div>It would probably be possible to squeeze Little Smalltalk into such a<br>
tiny computer. While it wouldn't do much, it would be comparable to this<br>
Python interpreter. It would also work just fine on a text terminal<br>
while non graphical Squeak is rather painful to use (I played around<br>
with two implementations). A framebuffer for 640x480 pixels with 256<br>
colors takes up 300KB, so having a VNC client on the PC side wouldn't<br>
help.<br>
<br>
I am always interested in finding out how small things can be. The<br>
original 1972 Dynabook paper proposed a machine with just 8K words of 16<br>
bits, but that was supposed to be a cache for a tape based virtual<br>
memory system and if the display were persistent and readable (like the<br>
plasma terminals from Plato) you could do without a frame buffer. The<br>
Alto was a 128KB machine, on the other hand, and this ARM<br>
microcontroller is was more powerful than it was.<br>
<br>
-- Jecel<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/Kay72a.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/Kay72a.pdf</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>