[jstanley]

> why hasn't someone built a system out of an Arduino that can self host compilers, editors, file systems, and allows you to do code development on a serial terminal or a "PC console" like device?

Mainly because Arduinos only have 2K of RAM. You could certainly connect up extra RAM chips to the digital I/O pins, but I'm not convinced there is any way to ask the ATmega328 to use this as extra memory, and even if there is you wouldn't have a lot of pins left over for doing anything else with.

[ChuckMcM]

I give you the BASIC Stamp[1] a BASIC environment on a chip with 25 BYTES of RAM. And the SPI RAM chip[2] (8 megabytes off a SPI port).

I built a simple PDP-11/20 emulator (not cycle accurate) that used the Atmega chip and a couple of FRAMs for 'core'. At 16MHz it ran faster than the PDP-11/20 did when it was built, and the 11/20 ran RT-11.

Basically this is a detailed way of saying that perhaps you perceive limitations where I see opportunities :-)

[1] https://www.parallax.com/product/basic-stamp-1-interpreter-c...

[2] https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/AP-Memory/APS6404L-3SQR...