[xfer]

Close to the hardware can also be done with scheme and indeed has been done in the past. Look at all the smartcards, running a JVM. For scheme, it just requires some engineering effort and there is not much demand for it. Btw, there is picobit(https://github.com/stamourv/picobit) which can be run on micro-controllers.

[mschaef]

PreScheme serves the same sort of role within the Scheme48 ecosystem. It's been a while since I've looked at Scheme48, but if I remember right, the VM is written in PreScheme, which is usually compiled down to either C or machine code. However... you can also run PreScheme code within Scheme48, so that it's possible to test/update the VM semantics without actually compiling down to C for each dev cycle.

[cat199]

That wasn't the point of parent -

scsh is purely interpreted and interfaces well with user-level programs but was being put forth as a systems-programming tool - while this works for some definitions of systems programming, it doesn't for others, and it is this distinction that the parent was pointing out.