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Comment by rootbear | Hacker News Reader

I seem to recall that the "Pi" in Raspberry Pi was originally "Py" and that the idea was that the system would boot straight into Python, similarly to how early personal computers booted into BASIC. This idea was later abandoned in favor of going with a full operating system.

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That is how the pyboard works, with MicroPython https://micropython.org

There are a few real devices which boot up into interpreters, like the Espruino, which runs Javascript (!):

http://www.espruino.com/

Ugggh. I love the idea, and its great that JavaScript is everywhere, by why does it have to be JavaScript?!?!

Because JavaScript is everywhere.

This could lower the barrier for js-only developers/designers/beginners to get into more low level programming, or to get them to play with some hardware a bit.

There are quite a few devices that boot into Lua, see http://www.eluaproject.net/ plus the Tessel really does and just compiles to js, and there is Lua firmware for a wifi module https://github.com/nodemcu/nodemcu-firmware

The NodeMCU is an amazing piece of kit. I'd say it's the future for DIY "internet of things". I mean, a microcontroller with GPIO, spi, i2c etc. and built-in wifi hardware, running Lua, for $9. You can throw together "small screen showing live information from the internet" or "sensor uploading data to internet" for less than $20 total cost. The ecosystem is still very new, but it's growing really fast.

> for $9

$3 with free shipping

Link plz!

Ebay, search for "ESP-01".

Yeah, we considered JavaScript for BITS for about three seconds, before dismissing the idea of doing systems programming in a language with no integers.

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