I wonder if there are any modern languages that would be particularly interesting to make specific hardware for. The only example I know of is the one that runs Java bytecode.

Add Forth to your list. There's 1 or 2 CPU's out there that came with a Forth engine in hardware (iirc). And there's some chips heavily optimized to run Forth systems (see eg. GreenArrays GA144. Sadly seems to be defunct these days?).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GA144

As for your original question: you might want to have a look at languages that overlap the border between 'traditional' PLs, and hardware description languages. Or hardware/software co-design, and tools used in that field. Edit: also see Oberon.

> The only example I know of is the one that runs Java bytecode

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazelle

Probably implemented in billions of ARM cores out there. Unsure how much use it sees though.

Multiply in Go on a forth machine!

Get the ball rolling on hands on computer hardware construction[0]

DIY crt vector graphics programming : [1]

----

[0] Roons! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8taEllwQ2iE )

[1] diy crt : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qPc_I1V6go