Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #234534

Re: Self-hosting and the 6502

From	Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net>
Newsgroups	alt.folklore.computers
Subject	Re: Self-hosting and the 6502
Date	2026-04-01 11:43 +0000
Organization	Drogon Towers
Message-ID	<10qj0dd$65ea$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	<10qdbas$2991c$1@dont-email.me> <10qdsqr$2fj63$1@dont-email.me>

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In article <10qdsqr$2fj63$1@dont-email.me>, Lev <thresh3@fastmail.com> wrote:

>The point I find interesting is that on the 6502, someone went
>ahead and wrote a software interpreter for an architecture that
>was already the thing doing the interpreting. No practical reason.

Slightly related; My own "fantasy parallel universe" series of systems
does this - or did this as I was developing it.

I started on the 6502 wanting a "self hosting" system - not by making
it emulate itself, but meaning the abiltiy to develop and run programs
on the same hardware without resorting to cross compilation.

Fast forward and on to the 65816 (the bastard 16-bit version of the
6502) and I had decided BCPL was my language of choice and wrote a "VM"
for the product of the BCPL compiler - a bytecode called "cintcode". I
wrote an Os in BCPL and could edit, compile and run programs directly
on my little SBC.

It also handled multitasking - at the bytecode level.

Looking to the (fantasy) future, I decided 32-bits and RISC-V was the
next step so I wrote a RISC-V emulator in BCPL and ran it on my 65816
system. It ran well and I could externally compile and run little C
programs to test it, so I set about writing the cintcode VM in RISC-V
assembler.

Then I just fed it the binary version of my OS and booted it.

So now I had my OS running on a RISC-V emulator written in BCPL running
on an OS written in BCPL running on the '816. Turtles all the way, as may
be said.

It was slow but usable as a test bed before I found suitable actual
RISC-V hardware.

So a different sort of self-hosting to the main thread, but maybe
interesting none the less.. (And I have a deranged idea that if I were
to write a 65816 emulator in BCPL and emulate my original board then I
could boot my OS under that but maybe that's a rabbit hole too deep...

-Gordon

Thread

Self-hosting and the 6502 Lev <thresh3@fastmail.com> - 2026-03-30 01:16 +0000
  Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-03-30 06:12 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 thresh3@fastmail.com (Lev) - 2026-03-30 07:07 +0000
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-03-30 08:13 +0000
        Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 thresh3@fastmail.com (Lev) - 2026-03-30 13:11 +0000
          Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-30 14:25 +0000
            Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-03-30 07:40 -0700
              Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> - 2026-03-30 17:02 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-31 21:35 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> - 2026-03-31 22:31 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-01 10:44 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> - 2026-04-01 10:47 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-01 13:57 +0000
              Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-31 21:34 +0000
                Re: PC/IX, was Self-hosting and the 6502 John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2026-04-01 02:01 +0000
              Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 "Kurt Weiske" <kurt.weiske@realitycheckbbs.org.remove-a96-this> - 2026-04-02 07:35 -0700
            Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> - 2026-04-01 18:14 -0400
              Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-01 22:56 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2026-04-01 21:44 -0400
                Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-04-01 21:35 -0700
          Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-03-30 15:25 +0100
            Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-03-30 07:42 -0700
          Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net> - 2026-04-01 11:43 +0000
            Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2026-04-01 15:41 -0400
              Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-01 22:16 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2026-04-01 21:51 -0400
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-04-01 21:37 -0700
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-02 10:50 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2026-04-02 15:18 -0400
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-03 13:13 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-02 10:58 +0000
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-04-02 07:32 -0700
                Re: Self-hosting and the PDP-10 [was Re: Self-hosting and the 6502] cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-04-02 18:23 +0000
      Re: virtualization, Self-hosting and the 6502 John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2026-03-30 16:28 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Bill Findlay <findlaybill@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2026-03-30 17:59 +0100
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-03-30 21:24 +0000
  Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-30 14:16 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-03-30 07:35 -0700
      Re: emulation, virtualization, Self-hosting and the 6502 John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2026-03-30 16:39 +0000
        Re: emulation, virtualization, Self-hosting and the 6502 ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2026-03-30 17:20 +0000
          Re: emulation, virtualization, Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-31 23:39 +0000
            Re: emulation, virtualization, Self-hosting and the 6502 scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-04-02 14:57 +0000
              Re: emulation, virtualization, Self-hosting and the 6502 rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-04-02 18:04 +0000
                Re: emulation, virtualization, Self-hosting and the 6502 scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-04-02 18:45 +0000
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> - 2026-03-30 18:03 +0100
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-03-30 21:23 +0000
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-31 23:05 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-03-30 07:57 -0700
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-30 22:19 +0000
        Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-03-31 00:18 +0100
          Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) - 2026-03-31 22:04 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> - 2026-03-30 17:07 +0000
  Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-03-31 03:34 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-03-31 03:54 +0000
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-03-31 05:01 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Lev <thresh3@fastmail.com> - 2026-03-31 05:26 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-03-31 07:48 -0700
      Re: machine simulation, Self-hosting and the 6502 John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2026-03-31 18:06 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-03-31 15:03 +0000
    Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Bill Findlay <findlaybill@blueyonder.co.uk> - 2026-03-31 18:23 +0100
      Re: Self-hosting and the 6502 Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-03-31 13:04 -0700

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