* Espruino is javascript on a microcontroller. This is not so dumb, as the javascript vm - originally written for web servers - is interrupt driven. The difference this makes is that the vm is designed to sit there doing nothing most of the time. This is great for low power systems, because doing nothing is very power efficient :-).

* Forth was great on microcontrollers back in the day. Triangle Digital Services in the UK made a super set of powerful devices which did then what people are used to the RPi doing now. ADC's, lots of GPIO, accurate interrupt timing and enough memory for decent programs. If you look at language development, Forth is pretty much an object based language and has links to Smalltalk, Lisp and others.

* BLE is finally great for short / medium range low data rate, low latency communications. Most uP platforms have BLE libraries, also usable MIDI functionality OOTB.

* RPi has lots of purposes, as tiny servers. It's not a desktop replacement, and the more powerful it gets the less I see the market but hey, the RP2040 makes up for it. I have a great fondness for ARM as they designed the original RISC chipset in Cambridge for the ACORN Archimedes, the successor to the BBC Micro. It matched my age, my degree, my purchasing power and looky look! Now everything has ARM IP in it! Well done, chaps.

* Other stuff