Blah

You know conlangs, Blah is a concon (for con computer).
It is a from-scratch computing environnment based on RiSC16.

Blah is a pet project that I am working on for fun. It serves no other purpose than entertaining me.

It consists of:

• A RiSC16 Assembler
• A repositionable object file format
• A linker
• A virutal-machine
• A compiler for stacklang, a rudimentary imperative programming language
• A debugger curse tool for visualizing binaries and execution

All of which are bundled within a single CLI tool, written in Crystal.

TODO

• Write an assembler able to ouput raw bitcode
  • Better error output for linker
  • UCS-2 Strings
• Write a dummy virtual machine that can execute this raw bitcode
  • IO
  • IO with both data and control register
  • Hello World
  • Propose memory paging mechanisms
  • Propose memory protection mechanisms
• Design and write a compiler for a small stack language
  • Finish parser refactor to full-featurness
  • Detect unterminating functions
  • Rework compiler error handling
  • Define a way to debug at link time (A non-loaded section that can contain an index of informations)
  • Operators overload on non-word or pointer types
  • Implement else, elsif, next, break
  • Global variable initialization
  • Scoped variables (in statement blocks) allocated as needed
  • Add error for stack size exceding small immediate size
  • Fix && and ||
  • Fix >= and <=
  • Refactor compiler to be simpler
  • Inline small functions
• Stdlib
  • IO handling
  • Basic math
• Write an OS
  • Implement a file system
  • Relocate and load another program
  • Relocate and load a dynamic library
  • Load, relocate a program with link to a dynamic library
  • Handle syscalls
  • Run multiple programs
  • Memory management
  • Fork and threads
  • Memory paging trhough bank switch or file system
  • Memory protection (isolate programs and limit jump between programs)
• Define fixed spec for a computer
• Define a standard configuration/description mechanism for detecting hardware

Full example

Here is an example of what can be currently done:
Running

./bin/cli -l stdlib/left_bitshift.sl stdlib/multiply.blah stdlib/putword.sl stdlib/right_bitshift.sl stdlib/stacklang_startup.blah -o build/stdlib.lib
./bin/cli -b build -s examples/brainfuck/brainfuck.ini -d bf-source=examples/brainfuck/hello.bf examples/brainfuck/brainfuck.sl build/stdlib.lib -o build/brainfuck

Will output

Hello World!

It compile and run a small program that will execute another program written in Brainfuck

Sources can be found here or in this readme:

examples/brainfuck/brainfuck.ini

[linker.section.text]
start=0x0

[linker.section.stack]
start=0xff00
size=0x00fe

[hardware.segment.ram]
kind=ram
start=0x0
size=0xfffe

[hardware.segment.tty]
kind=io
start=0xfffe
tty=true

[hardware.segment.brainfuck]
kind=io
start=0xffff
source=$bf-source

examples/brainfuck/hello.bf:

++++++++[>++++[>++>+++>+++>+<<<<-]>+>+>->>+[<]<-]>>.>---.+++++++..+++.>>.<-.<.+++.------.--------.>>+.>++.

examples/brainfuck/brainfuck.sl:

require "../stdlib/prototypes.sl"

fun load_io(io:*, destination:*, size):_ {
  var i = 0
  var buffer
  while ((buffer = *io) != 0xff00 ) {
    if (i == size)
      return 0
    *(destination + i) = buffer
    i += 1
  }
  return i
}

var program: [0x1000]
var ram: [0x1000]

fun main:_ {
  var pc = 0
  var ptr = 0
  var program_size = load_io(&__io_brainfuck, &program, 0x1000)
  var loop_count = 0

  if (program_size == 0x10)
     return 1

  while (1) {
    if (pc == program_size)
      return 0
    if (program[pc] == 0x3E)
      ptr += 1
    if (program[pc] == 0x3c)
      ptr -= 1
    if (program[pc] == 0x2B)
      ram[ptr] += 1
    if (program[pc] == 0x2D)
      ram[ptr] -= 1
    if (program[pc] == 0x2E)
      __io_tty = ram[ptr]
    if (program[pc] == 0x2C)
      ram[ptr] = __io_tty
    if (program[pc] == 0x5B) {
      if (ram[ptr] == 0) {
       	while (program[pc] != 0x5D || loop_count != 0) {
 	        pc += 1
	        if (pc == program_size)
      	    return 1
	        if (program[pc] == 0x5B)
	          loop_count += 1
	        if (program[pc] == 0x5D)
	          loop_count -= 1
        }
      }
    }
    if (program[pc] == 0x5D) {
      if (ram[ptr] != 0) {
        loop_count = 1
       	while (program[pc] != 0x5B || loop_count != 0) {
          if (pc == 0)
	          return 1
	        pc -= 1
	        if (program[pc] == 0x5D)
      	    loop_count += 1
	        if (program[pc] == 0x5B)
	          loop_count -= 1
	      }
      }
    }

    pc += 1
  }
  return 0
}

Other sources files used for building the stdlib can be found in the stdlib directory