Alternatives
Products that do what I wrote a BASIC interpreter that boots on UEFI machines does
I started writing Thoreau BASIC because I wanted a small, old-fashioned BASIC interpreter: line numbers, immediate mode, simple graphics, strings, arrays, the sort of environment where the computer starts with a "Ready" prompt and you can immediately make it do something. Then I wondered: why should it need an operating system? So I made it boot directly on x64 machines using UEFI. The UEFI version uses the Graphics Output Protocol for its framebuffer and gets its keyboard input directly from the firmware. There is no Windows or Linux underneath it. The machine boots into BASIC. It supports…
- 1IW
2018 · github.com
- 2VB
2013 · github.com
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2021 · jamesl.me
- 5AS
2019 · github.com
- 6AS
2014 · github.com
- 7VP
2015 · github.com
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2016 · github.com
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Hi HN! Silk is a project I began working on approximately six months ago without any prior experience or knowledge of compiler design, and it's been a frustrating but fun learning experience. It is very much a work in progress, but I would love to hear feedback of any kind!
2020 · ajaymt.github.io
- 11LB
Jul 2026 · sinusoft.com
- 12IM
https://github.com/siraben/ti84-forth Hi HN! For the past year I've been getting into programming in Z80 assembly (especially for the TI-84+). More recently I've been learning about the Forth programming language and after a lot of searching online (in vain) for a Forth interpreter for the TI-84, I decided to write one myself. It's been fun demoing this to others, because it's a very unexpected use of a calculator. It's my largest project to date, and I'm interested to know what the HN community thinks, please feel free to critique my code! -- Ben
2018
- 13PA
GitHub: https://github.com/mayuropensource/PuffinBASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a general-purpose high-level language from the 1960s. PuffinBASIC is an implementation of the BASIC language specification. PuffinBASIC conforms most closely to GWBASIC. The purpose of this implementation is to learn how to write interpreters and resurrect an old programming language to work in modern ecosystem. The interpreter is evolving fast and in near future, I wish to apply modern interpreter building techniques to it. How it works? 1. PuffinBASIC's…
2020
- 14IM
2013 · github.com
- 15LE
2016 · github.com
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Spotify Wrapped for Claude, Codex & a Public leaderboard.
Jun 2026 · whoburnedmore.com
- 17IM
https://github.com/siraben/zkeme80 As a successor to my previous project[1], a Forth interpreter that runs under the TI operating system, I decided to go all the way and write my own assembler and OS. This is a project I've been working on for just over a month, but there's still a long way to go. The idea is to have a kernel + the Forth interpreter and compiler, then users can modify how their operating system works through the Forth files. My Forth implementation is mostly ANS-standard conforming, so most code should work right out of the box without any problem. See…
2019
- 18TI
2017 · tux.io
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Vanilla OS is an operating system built with simplicity in mind. It
13d ago · vanillaos.org
- 20IW
2018 · github.com
- 21IB
You know that old TI calculator you used in high school, then put in a box and forgot about? Have you ever wished you had an operating system for your calculator with preemptive multitasking, dynamic memory management, a tree filesystem conforming to the FHS, and all the comforts of Unix? Well, good news: that's totally a thing that exists. I've been working on my kernel for about three and a half years now and I'm looking for new contributors to help out. It's written entirely in z80 assembly, and it's both challenging and fun to work on. There's an IRC channel for contributors or people…
2014
- 22BA
Hi HN, I'm the author. I built this project for two simple reasons: I've always used higher-level languages and wanted to finally understand what's happening "under the hood" of an interpreter. I also wanted a real project to force me to "power up" my C skills, especially with manual memory management and reference counting. The result is ToyForth, a minimal interpreter for a Forth-like language, written from scratch in C, stack-based. I focused on making the code clean and understandable. It's broken down into a few simple parts: A parser that turns source text into a list of objects…
Nov 2025 · github.com
- 23IM
Try it at: ssh krnl.duetbrowser.com No sign up, totally free - no download. Let me know what you think. Prior art exists (brow.sh) but I wasn't satisfied with their graphical take. I wanted the raw, old skool terminal days of the early internet - BBS, and old green phosphor library comptuers - but running the modern web, with all the bells and jingle jangle whistles (JavaScript, etc). No funding, no VC, just 100% raw terminal fun. Not sure how long the demo will last, but try it out.
Jul 2026
- 24LF
Hi HN, I just wanted to share what I have been working on for the past few months: A firmware analyzer for embedded Linux systems that helps uncovering security issues running entirely in the browser. This is a very early Alpha. It is going to be rough around the edges. But I think it provides quite a lot of value already. So please go ahead and drop a firmware (only .tar rootfs archives for now) and try to break it :)
Mar 2026 · xray.boldwark.com
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