Jecel Assumpcao Jr <jecel at merlintec.com>  wrote...

>I should have mentioned that the $30 general purpose computer I was
>talking about earlier is for small quantities. One of my projects is to
>actually have a $5 Smalltalk machine. That wouldn't have a keyboard or
>display, but would live inside of a light pen that would connect to a
>TV set. Think of it as a "tablet PC for the poor" :-)

I'd be interested in any links.  As you may be aware I'm working around the $200 price point with the help of a few others.  When we're done it might be interesting to see what could be thrown out for your needs-.

>A little more on topic, after I finish my current machine I want to
>implement the Squeak VM in Verilog on the Xess development board. I
>wonder if I should do it 100% by hand or if the Slang translator could
>be perverted to do part of the job. This is just a learning experience
>and not a commercial project. I want to see how fast things can go with
>no fancy tricks.

I encourage you to play around with the Slang translator.  It will give you a working VM, and one that is even pretty fast if you have enough room to allow inlining.  The generation side of the translator is extremely simple - I think you could have something running in a couple of days (not including, of course, the rest of your BIOS etc).

	- Dan