lispBM (LBM)

LispBM is a lisp or scheme like programming language for microcontrollers. LispBM also borrows a couple of ideas from Erlang when it comes to concurrency, message passing, pattern matching and process monitoring. The LispBM runtime system can be compiled for either 32 or 64 bit platforms and runs on a wide range of hardware such as for example STM32, NRF52, ESP32 or X86. When running the LispBM runtime system on a microcontroller it can be built on top of ChibiOS, FreeRTOS or ZephyrOS or, if you are adventurous, on bare-metal. LispBM can also be built to run on top of a regular linux.

The LispBM mascot, Lispy the llama, was created by PixiLadyArt. Thank you, Pixi!

Want to get involved and help out?

There are lots of interesting things to code on in and around the LispBM runtime system.

1. Are you interested in microcontrollers and programming languages?
2. You find it fun to mess around in C code with close to zero comments?
3. Then join in the fun. Lots to do, so little time!
4. Poke me by mail bo(dot)joel(dot)svensson(whirly-a)gmail(dot)com.

Getting started

The easiest way to get started with LispBM programming is to use VESC-Tool together with the VESC EXPRESS Firmware on an esp32c3.

VESC-Tool gives you access to a very capable IDE for lisp programming on embedded systems and the VESC Express firmware provides built in functionality to interface with CAN, WIFI, BLE and UART as well as GPIO and display drivers.

If you are looking for a more bare-bones way to add scripting capabilities to your embedded system, LispBM is quite platform independent and can be compiled for many different MCUs and systems. LispBM can tie into the rest of your application via what we call "extensions" which are C functions that can be called from your LispBM scripts.

Documentation

• Work in progress LispBM language reference.
• Gotchas and caveats Gotchas and caveats.
• Work in progress LispBM programming manual.
• C code documentation can be found here.
• LispBM's internals are documented as a series of blog posts.
• There are demonstrations on YouTube.

Compile a 64bit binary for linux

1. Build the repl: cd repl and then make all64

2. Run the repl: ./repl

Compile a 32bit binary for linux (Requires 32bit libraries. May need something like "multilib" on a 64bit linux)

1. Build the repl: cd repl and then make

2. Run the repl: ./repl

Compile on Raspberry Pi

To build the library exeute the following command in the lispbm folder:

PLATFORM=pi make

To build the repl example repl do:

cd repl
make pirepl

Then start it up using ./repl Building the library is not a prerequisite for building the repl anymore.

SDL and LispBM

In the sdlrepl directory there is a start of a set of SDL bindings for LispBM.

To build this repl you need the following dependencies:

1. libsdl2-dev - sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev
2. libsdl2-image-dev - sudo apt-get install libsdl2-image-dev

Then compile the repl using the command make