You mean like this?

http://www.espruino.com/

One example of bare metal JavaScript.

The biggest problem with such systems are more political than technical.

We have tons of CPU cycles to spare compared with what Burroughs, Xerox PARC, ETHZ and many other similar systems required.

As an example, the Xerox Alto used for Smalltalk-80 had 512 KB of RAM with 4 74181's running at 5.88 MHz.

Just wait until after the nuclear world war in the early 2020s.

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

There are already emulators that work in JS, that said, I don't know that it'd work for anything not emulated... As much as I love JS, I'm even a bit of a fan of electron based apps. That said this kind of integration doesn't make as much sense to me, it's interesting, but don't know how far it should ever go.

I can se leveraging web/js as part of skinning/theming a window manager ui, but not sure about having it this far down the rabbit hole.

The day 60GB of RAM is the norm. Just wait till embedded development shifts to node.

For the "bigger" embedded platforms (rpi and similar), node is pretty serviceable... There have been other efforts to get JS based engines working well too. It depends on how you define embedded.

I was a little angry with my browser so that was meant to be an insult.

JS (not node) is usable for embedded coding. An example would be http://www.espruino.com/. Newer boards that come on Kickstarter typically support JS since it's a great intro language for coding especially for kids.

It's funny, but I like JS a lot, still think that Python is probably a better learning language... there's enough sharp edges in JS, that I don't think it's great for starting with, other than it's accessible, and combined with a browser, close to instant gratification.

Teaching JS to kids? Let's hook Dijkstra up to a dynamo, he'll be spinning in his grave fast enough!

I think it's great in the sense that you can easily make apps, games etc. which is good for getting kids interested quickly. Once their hooked, we can push them to some of the "better" languages.

As long as Python actively refuses to support real constants among some other immutability related features, I think the more recent versions of JS are going to get past Python in sheer elegance of code.

I'm inclined to agree to some extent... I think that JS can be beautiful and intuitive. However, I've seen too many instances of the following.

    var bazCopy = [];
    for (var i=0; i<bar.baz.length; i++) {
      var orig = bar.baz[i];
      bazCopy[i] = {
        fizz: orig.fiz,
        buzz: orig.buzz
      };
    }
    parentCopy.baz = bazCopy;

Over map/reduce/filter, and the like... Sometimes doing code reviews on pull requests is exhausting.

> Just wait till embedded development shifts to node.

It already has. See Tessel (now on v2 of their board), and the Espruino which powers the pretty sweet Puck.js board.

If you're Microsoft with their Azure/IoT setup, it's already happening. I've been spelunking in their SDK and it makes me want to tear my hair out.

I'm working with Cortex-M0/M3 devices kicking bytes over wifi modems, and Microsoft believes a "device" is a desktop-class SoC with an Ethernet jack running Node.

Well you could use Java instead. :)

http://www.microej.com/products/

You know, in an alternate universe where ARM Jazelle took off, that might not be so bad.

But in this universe I'm all out of hair.

There is such alternate universe, even if not in large scale.

It is composed by the likes of PTC, IBM J9 Embedded or other alternative languages like .NET MF and Oberon.

But I do conceded it is not an option most of the time.

Good luck with the project.

Close: https://github.com/runtimejs/runtime

There's another project but I'm having a hard time finding the link again.

I think you mean this one: https://node-os.com/

No, I meant one that's actually a kernel running on duktape or something.