One project used ATS for an 8-bitter: http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http

One project used ATS for an 8-bitter: http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http://metasepi.org/doc/metasepi-icfp2015-arduino-ats.pdf http://www.ats-lang.org http://www.ats-lang.org Chez Scheme used to run on 8-bit platform, too. Then there's Pascal and BASIC dialects for microcontrollers. Astrobe has Oberon dialect for ARM Cortex's. AVR-Ada lets you use Ada with AVR's. OcaPIC put Ocaml subset on PIC microcontrollers. People are using C because most people already use C with the ecosystem benefits that follow. Although C and assembly are dominant, there are other options available if people think their pro's and con's line up with their needs.