This is an experiment where I suppose we are in a world where we only have:
- a CPU able to run Brainfuck code
- a text editor
For information, Brainfuck is a minimalism esoteric programming language, but still Turing-complete.
bf.py is the Brainfuck interpreter and compiler available.
You can execute a Brainfuck source code by running ./bf.py code.bf
Using the compiler (option -c) is a way to make the code faster (it uses gcc or clang with flag -O3).
Notes: cells are 8-bit and the special character EOF is 0xff (255). You can use any Brainfuck compiler meeting these criteria.
For more details, run ./bf.py -h
For now, my goal is to be able to run C code on that CPU, because C is the most commonly used programming language.
I think the best idea is to start by creating a virtual machine able to run a higher level language, such as a RISC Assembly language. Indeed, Brainfuck is way to low level: I want to be able to handle pointers, but there is no easy way in Brainfuck to get the byte at a specific address. That's why I'm building a virtual machine with an infinite table acting as a Random-access memory, based on the idea of INSHAME: Memory efficient Brainfuck tables. The virtual machine will use the Von Neumann architecture, putting the program and data in the same memory.
I am currently working on a virtual machine written in Brainfuck and able to run a simple assembly language.