cc65 VS wat-js

True. The code generated by https://cc65.github.io/ is pretty decent but there are a few places where hand-rolled assembler will perform much better when you need it. Although I've made things for 6502-based systems in C with this handy compiler (thanks cc65 contributors!).

Is there something intrinsic to how C handles addressing that makes segmented architectures more painful than they ought to be? Or maybe is there a language where segmented addressing is easier?

I hadn't really thought about it in a while. :)

cc65

There's tools like cc65 that let you write C code for the NES.

You can use any text editor for coding and the tutorial uses cc65 for compiling assembly to machine code.

You can use cc65 https://cc65.github.io/ but because you are compiling it in a limit hardware the cc65 has its rules and recommendations to follow in order to get the most optimal binaries, and more specifically I read this when I made the "Pong" game for NES as a practice long time ago https://nesdoug.com/ , I hope it helps, happy coding!

What assembler/tools did you use anyways? Personally I'd recommend ca65 from the cc65 C compiler utility. It's very powerful, open source, and kept updated (unlike a lot of ancient 6502 tools, like WDC's)

It really is a cool project. https://github.com/cc65/cc65

It provides some template configuration files describing different memory layouts. And provides common libraries for input/output.

There's also a LLVM fork for MOS: https://github.com/llvm-mos/llvm-mos

They've got some interesting hacks with ZeroPage memory and register allocation: https://llvm-mos.org/wiki/Code_generation_overview

Interesting if you geek out on that kind of research.

Well Forth is possibly the most minimal VM over a platform, as evidenced by openfirmware.

It does have problems scaling though, in that if you've seen one Forth, you've seen one Forth ie. The variations required to fit a platform make them semi-incompatible.

That's not to say that a more lispy Forth wouldn't be useful though, in that a concatenative syntax allows us to pass custom datastructures around like APL, and CPS (delimited continuations with lexically scoped dynamic binding would come from the lisp side (see https://github.com/manuel/wat-js).

Memory management in Forth can handle multiple memory types eg. https://flashforth.com/ so adding something like ref counting (https://github.com/zigalenarcic/minilisp/blob/main/main.c) to handle the dynamic list side of things might mesh well.

In any case, if you're looking for a self hosting lisp that runs on bare metal, https://github.com/attila-lendvai/maru has been out for a few years.

https://github.com/manuel/wat-js

If you have delimited continuations then you can construct coroutines/threads/await/async, promises etc.

I guess that this might be suitable for many scenarios thanks to nodejs, but the runtimes it relies on are not exactly small.