ByteScript

ByteScript is a compact, fantasy‑hardware–style language designed to run in two distinct modes:

1. Source interpretation – Executes the original human‑readable source directly in the source interpreter (“half‑VM”), retaining variable names and labels for debugging and emulation.
2. Bytecode execution – Compiles the same source into a compact, numeric‐only instruction stream for the compiled VM, which runs faster and uses less memory.

PRINT in Bytecode

The compiled bytecode VM supports the PRINT instruction only when printing a numeric value — typically the value stored in a variable.
Printing arbitrary strings is not supported in bytecode mode, as this would require additional complexity such as:

• Embedding string data directly in the byte stream (e.g., via NOP‑encoded segments or data blocks).
• Managing address mapping and retrieval of those embedded strings at runtime.

These features are intentionally omitted to keep the bytecode VM minimal and efficient.

Variable Handling in Bytecode

In compiled form:

• Each variable is assigned a single‑byte address (0–255).
• The bytecode references only these numeric addresses — original variable names are not preserved.
• This imposes a hard limit of 256 variables per program but greatly reduces binary size and speeds up execution.
• In source form, a varmap associates names to addresses, but this mapping is discarded when compiling to bytecode.

Note:

the Most Recent version sshow around 3.23x faster perfomance than the old speed before optimaztions of around 113.95ms which includes optmizing and running time.

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Open this page at https://killercraft-thecoder.github.io/pxt-bytescript/

Use as Extension

This repository can be added as an extension in MakeCode.

• open https://arcade.makecode.com/
• click on New Project
• click on Extensions under the gearwheel menu
• search for https://github.com/killercraft-thecoder/pxt-bytescript and import

Edit this project

To edit this repository in MakeCode.

• open https://arcade.makecode.com/
• click on Import then click on Import URL
• paste https://github.com/killercraft-thecoder/pxt-bytescript and click import

Metadata (used for search, rendering)

• for PXT/arcade