Reply To: Simulation

Here’s a use case that makes sense to me:

If Mill hardware (e.g. an FPGA prototype of Tin or Copper) is ready before the LLVM modifications are sufficient to compile Mill executables, then a simple interpreter could serve the roles of monitor, debugger and image loader. I think that could help a lot with board bring-up. Even if hardware only might be ready first, I think having such an interpreter would be a worthwhile risk-reduction strategy.

Under the above use case, I’d reverse my previous opinion:
In that use case, I’d suggest first porting a minimal version of vanilla Forth, without trying to make optimal use of the Mill’s unique characteristics. But once that Forth interpreter is working and stable, then we could use what we’ve learned from bringing that up on the Mill (or Mill simulation) to design a new interpreted language, one better suited to the Mill’s unique characteristics.

Thoughts?