[jacquesm]

> Is it theoretically impossible to fit an interpreter for a dynamic programming language in the L1 cache of a modern chip?

I'm pretty sure Chuck Moore (yes, he's still around) would be able to fit the interpreter and an entire OS into the L1 cache with room to spare. Forth technically is an interpreter.

[mikekchar]

You can get a FORTH kernel in 2K words. It's also incredibly efficient for your own code since you basically have a dictionary and memory addresses. Thinking about it, in the old days dictionaries stored 8 character identifiers, which will handily fit in a 64 bit word. That means that the dictionary only needs 2 words per entry.

As you imply, the interpreter will be dwarfed by the code needed to talk to the rest of the OS. As an aside, this is why I was initially very excited about the JVM when Java first came around. Compiling down to a FORTH style language should give you pretty impressive benefits.

Virtual machines were very popular for a long time, but I'm not entirely convinced that we've really pushed the concept as far as it can go.

[protomyth]

The amount of Forth code you could put in a small space is amazing. One of reasons a 128k Mac had Forth show up on it relatively quickly.

I remember back in the day someone was working on a Forth version of OpenStep. Weird, but there were some funky Forths then too. I so wish they had succeeded.