Embedded and low-end hardware survey: Embeddable language implementations

also libraries and OSs

JVM and java

in a separate file, [1].

LuaVMs for low-end embedded systems

according to http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2007-11/msg00248.html , Lua was under 100k on cell phones, and according to http://www.lua.org/about.html , "Under Linux, the Lua interpreter built with all standard Lua libraries takes 182K...", and according to http://www.schulze-mueller.de/download/lua-poster-090207.pdf , Lua fit into 128k ROM.

http://www.luafaq.org/#T1.33 says "Embedding Lua will only add about 150-200K to your project, depending on what extra libraries are chosen. It was designed to be an extension language and it is straightforward to ensure that any user scripts operate in a 'safe' environment (see Sandboxing.) You do not even have to embed the compiler front-end of Lua, and just use the core with pre-compiled scripts. This can get the memory footprint down to about 40K."

and as noted above, there's also the eLua project:

http://www.eluaproject.net/

" It's hard to give a precise answer to this, because this is not only dependable on the footprint of eLua or it's resource requirements but on the final user applications as well. As a general rule, for a 32-bit CPU, we recommend at least 256k of Flash and at least 64k of RAM. However, this isn't a strict requirement. A stripped down, integer-only version of eLua can definitely fit in 128k of Flash and depending on your type of application, 32k of RAM might prove just fine. We have built eLua for targets with less than 10K RAM but you can't do much than blinking an LED with them. It really largely depends on your needs. "

note that instruction sizes affect things somewhat here. if you measure things in words instead of bytes, then we have x86 variable length instruction sizes, compared with (i think?) PDP's 16-bit instruction size, and (i think) APPLE's 6502 8-bit opcodes. And newer machines require more bits per each address. Presumably then the same number of instructions may take up more room in newer machines.

eLua

http://www.eluaproject.net/

" eLua is not a stripped down set of Lua to fit in the embedded environment. Much on the contrary, it strives to offer the same features as the desktop version of Lua, complementing them with specific features for embedded use and discarting the need of an operating system running on the microcontrollers. Besides offering different flavors of the full Lua implementation (like the possibility of choosing between an integer-only and a floating point numbers implementation), a lot of work was and will be done in the direction of making Lua more "embedded-friendly" by augmenting the core language with features that allow lower memory requirements and faster embedded performance. "

Python VMs for low-end embedded systems

PyMite

http://code.google.com/p/python-on-a-chip/

" Requires roughly 55 KB program memory Initializes in 4KB RAM; print "hello world" needs 5KB; 8KB is the minimum recommended RAM. Supports integers, floats, tuples, lists, dicts, functions, modules, classes, generators, decorators and closures Supports 25 of 29 keywords and 89 of 112 bytecodes from Python 2.6 Can run multiple stackless green threads (round-robin) Has a mark-sweep garbage collector Has a hosted interactive prompt for live coding Licensed under the GNU GPL ver. 2

The PyMite? VM DOES NOT HAVE:

    A built-in compiler
    Any of Python's libraries (no batteries included)
    A ready-to-go solution for the beginner (you need to know C and how to work with microcontrollers) "

" Does the PyMite? VM have a GIL?

No. "

Keywords ~~~~~~~~

PyMite? supports the following subset of Python's keywords::

and assert break class continue def del elif else for from global if import in is lambda not or pass print raise return while yield

PyMite? DOES NOT support these keywords::

except exec finally try

" PyMite? DOES NOT support Long or Complex numbers "

Sequence slicing is NOT fully supported. Only the sequence-copy form `seq[:]` is supported. Slicing is NOT supported on the bytearray type.

" PyMite? supports Dictionaries having up to 32767 key, value pairs. "

" PyMite?