Introduction

I've actually been researching this for a while. I wanted to write a self hosting compiler for David "8 Bit Guy" Murray's new retro machine the CX16 - which is a 6502 machine at heart, so it can be used in any 6502 processor (or any other by rewriting the code generator).

There are several options from history (some more recent than others)

Standard languages, like Basic, C, Pascal, BCPL and similar. Most of these don't fit the 8 bit model that well (or at all), or have complex optimisers not practical for a self hosting compiler. Several run on a virtual machine.

Specialist languages, like Action, Promal, PL/65 and others which are variants on standard languages. Most have exactly the same problem. Some are hosted, some are cross compiled.

High Level Assembler languages, like Quick,(C)65CM, Pas64. Most of these have a mixture of features, where their data manipulation is done in an assembly way (e.g. add a,b->c ) and have structure built in.