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On Tue, 2009-05-26 at 00:11 +1200, Paul Davey wrote:
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Does anyone know of any microcontrollers that are designed to run lisp?
Through microcode or something?
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You didn't exactly say what you wanted it for, but depending on your needs you may be able to use a slightly gruntier CPU and an embedded Linux solution - prices start at about $60. The issues with Linux based solutions are power usage, size, and cost. The advantage of a Linux based solution is you can then use:<BR>
<BR>
<B>ecl</B> - Embedded Common Lisp: <A HREF="http://ecls.sourceforge.net/">http://ecls.sourceforge.net/</A> (compiles to C so can target most any processor Linux supports)<BR>
<B>picolisp</B> - <A HREF="http://www.software-lab.de/ref.html">http://www.software-lab.de/ref.html</A> (Not certain it can be used, except it is a package supported by dd-wrt http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_list_of_Optware_packages - so surely it doesn't just run on x86 CPUs). Seems to be focused on web serving and supports unicode.<BR>
<B>scheme48</B> - see <A HREF="http://osdir.com/ml/lisp.scheme.scheme48/2006-08/msg00009.html">http://osdir.com/ml/lisp.scheme.scheme48/2006-08/msg00009.html</A> (not lisp I know!).<BR>
<BR>
The cheapest board is possibly:<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.omnima.co.uk/store/catalog/Embedded-controller-p-16140.html">http://www.omnima.co.uk/store/catalog/Embedded-controller-p-16140.html</A><BR>
Costs <B>19 pounds</B> + shipping from UK.<BR>
Has 175MHz MIPS processor, 12 IO pins, 2 USB ports, and 5 10/100 ethernet ports (it is a router board). Uses 12V at 0.5A. Boots and runs Linux from a USB stick.<BR>
It doesn't have a big community so you would need to know a bit of Linux foo.<BR>
<BR>
Something that runs dd-wrt (see http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices) or openwrt is probably easier to use and has more support e.g. NZD120 gets you a WRT54GL board with WiFi access:<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.pricespy.co.nz/pno_8868.html">http://www.pricespy.co.nz/pno_8868.html</A><BR>
However IO is more of a problem and requires hacking the hardware e.g. there are at least 4 IO pins and 2 serial ports:<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G-TM_SD/MMC_mod">http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Linksys_WRT54G-TM_SD/MMC_mod</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WRT54GL_MAX232_Serial">http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/WRT54GL_MAX232_Serial</A><BR>
Although you would need to do some more sleuthing to ensure it is suitable and you get the right thing (e.g. it requires 12V at 1.1A - not for AA batteries!).<BR>
<BR>
There are small and low power Linux solutions that are friendlier for development, but they tend to be hundreds of dollars e.g. gumstix.<BR>
<BR>
You can also get a free lisp for Palm devices but again the problem is lack of IO (and when I tried it, it was too slow to do much useful!).<BR>
<BR>
Cheers<BR>
<BR>
Morris
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