Bytecode VMs in Surprising Places (2024) | Hacker News

A Hacker News thread revisited Mitch Bradley’s OpenFirmware and CForth work on portable Forth-based firmware VMs.

The systems use threaded-code interpreters and FCode to load drivers and boot hardware efficiently.

Their design has stayed portable across generations of CPUs and devices, from SPARC and PowerPC to embedded boards.

The discussion highlighted how a compact bytecode VM can remain long-lived, cross-platform, and firmware-friendly.