ZSzserge·Apr 21, 2026
Reminds me of a good old arduino shell, Bitlash - https://github.com/billroy/bitlash/wiki/commands
In Ibuilt a tiny Unix‑like 'OS' with shell and filesystem for Arduino UNO (2KB RAM)billroy
bitlash
C2016–2026
billroy / bitlash
bitlash
Bitlash: a programmable command shell for arduino
3Distinct people
3Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
350GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Bitlash: a programmable command shell for arduino
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year3 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2016-01-29 17:40:35 UTC to 2026-04-21 20:22:06 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
3 sourcesAs much as I like Forth, it isn't the only player in the restricted memory arena. Several models of the Commodore PET came with 32kb of RAM, and 18kb of ROM. Here are some that reflect similar requirements.
uLisp [0], 2kb of RAM, and 32kb to store the interpreter in. You can write programs at the REPL, and burn them into the EEPROM.
TinyBASIC [1], since dead, is a port of the version of BASIC that used to run on the Altair 8800, which was an even more constrained system than most PETs! Altair BASIC could run on 4kb of RAM.
Python-On-A-Chip [2], is a subset of Python. At a guess, from the supported platforms, it can run on around 2kb of RAM.
iArduino [3], is a C interpreter that can run in 2kb of RAM.
MicroPython is looking to come to the ESP8266 [4], which is much, much bigger at 512kb. Which basically makes it the fattest of these, and i
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mpossible to run on something like the PET.
Bitlash is a completely new language [5], and can run on 2kb of RAM, and takes up surprisingly little storage space.
All of these languages offer at least a REPL, as well as compatibility with a wide range of libraries, and most have at least traceback and exception support.
This is not to say Forth is a bad choice! It works great in tiny memory, with better support for a full language specification than many other languages.
But not everyone wants a Forth... And there are plenty of choices out there.
[0] http://www.ulisp.com/
[1] http://hackaday.com/2011/08/28/basic-programming-on-an-ardui...
[2] https://github.com/jsnyder/python-on-a-chip
[3] http://n.mtng.org/ele/arduino/iarduino.html
[4] https://github.com/micropython/micropython/tree/master/esp82...
[5] https://github.com/billroy/bitlash/wiki
Depends on what you consider "serious". You can watch a Kickstarter video, at least the beginning. A gadget which shows you weather. Is it serious? I dunno. But I find it useful. Well, perhaps I don't need to know weather in Tokyo if I'm too far away from it. Just knowing meteo report for my area, and actual temperature outside would be good. But wait, if I have an upcoming trip to Tokyo, I'm actually interested in weather in Tokyo during next couple of weeks. Easy customization and changes like that (literally, "on spot") is the biggest selling point of scripting languages.
Can you do it in Arduino? Yes, you can. Arduino is kind of subset of C++ to make it more like scripting language, but still compiled (because AVR microcontroller used in the original Arduino couldn't host an advanced scripting language, but people didn't care even bac
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k then, and wanted to run it nonetheless: https://github.com/billroy/bitlash). So, just keep that compiler/IDE around (on your tablet? phone?) if you want to tweak it. Is it big problem? Nope, but should give an idea why people look towards scripting languages which allow to have even less problems.
How MicroPython will be better? Well, we seriously consider Python to be more advanced language overall (while more suited for hardware programming). And I'm a long-time esp8266 hacker with bunch of ideas how to get more from the chip, just looking for a good excuse (like, people actually needing it) to implement them.