Actually I was thinking more about some Oberon versions that used a JIT, the way .NET is integrated into Windows, specially on the mobile since version 7.
Also the way Java gets used on Android and other embedded platforms.
Ah, Oberon. Don't know much about it. But do somewhat remember an interesting feature of it from a BYTE or other computer mag article: You could write a subroutine once and then have it available in the whole operating system - something like that. My description might not be right but I remember thinking the feature was powerful at the time.
Didn't know, thanks. Also saw that you just posted a link to an article about Mesa on HN. Viewed it briefly. It says the Alto file system was written in "BPCL". Should that BCPL, a precursor of C? Had read a book it, by Martin Richards, IIRC, long ago. Good read. I think it had only one type - machine words. Fun to implement higher level stuff on such a base, though tedious by today's HLL standards.
BCPL, an interpretive implementation of the BCPL language and system, including many demonstration programs. Click on BCPL.html to obtain a copy of the current version. This version can be installed easily on most machines running Linux, Windows and MAC OSX. In particular, it is easy to install this version on the Raspberry Pi machine. See the Young Person's Guide to BCPL Programming on the Raspberry Pi (bcpl4raspi.pdf) for details.
He was awarded the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award in 2003 for "pioneering system software portability through the programming language BCPL".[9]
Bitcode isn't JIT (yet); it simply allows Apple to compile binaries targeted at new devices or with newer compilers, without the developer having to do anything.
>Sounds familiar?
I suppose you mean like Java and Python bytecode running on their VMs (of the language, not OS kind).
I've sometimes thought, as well as heard others say, that some of the tech advancements of earlier decades haven't been "re-invented" :) yet ...