Very neat! How much work would it be to write ROS bindings so you could control robots easily with it? Googling around, I found one team that has done it with Pharo: http://car.imt-lille-douai.fr/category/software/pharos/
I am not an expert in ROS, but there have been other projects using Smalltalk for robotics, such as NXTalk [2] and a Squeak-based system [3]. A more general paper discusses the challenges in using Smalltalk for robotics applications [4].
So it should be possible to do this on the Smalltalk-80 bare-metal port. One problem that will definitely show up, though, is the limited memory space and number of objects of Smalltalk-80, since it uses a 16 bit VM. Modern robotics applications involving complex SLAM approaches, object recognition or LiDAR might be a bit challenging for this, so I think a more modern 32 bit based VM such as Squeak or Pharo is more appropriate here.
(edit: links reformatted)
[1] https://www.hs-coburg.de/news-detailseite/roboterrennen-im-l... (sorry, in German only)
[2] https://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/projects/nxtalk/in...
[3] Joaquin Sitte, Robotics and Robotics Education with Smalltalk, AMiRE 2005
[4] LaLonde, W., Thomas, D., Johnson, K., Smalltalk as a programming language for robotics?, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1987 - http://www.menneske.org/projects/bachelorsproject/Articles/s...