Having found rust wasn't going to work, I've hacked up a rough core of the

cons space in C. None of this is tested.

src/conspage.h

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+#include "consspaceobject.h"
+
+#ifndef __conspage_h
+#define __conspage_h
+
+
+/**
+ * the number of cons cells on a cons page. The maximum value this can be (and consequently,
+ * the size which, by version 1, it will default to) is the maximum value of an unsigned 32
+ * bit integer, which is to say 4294967296. However, we'll start small.
+ */
+#define CONSPAGESIZE 256
+
+/**
+ * the number of cons pages we will initially allow for. For convenience we'll set up an array
+ * of cons pages this big; however, later we will want a mechanism for this to be able to grow
+ * dynamically to the maximum we can currently allow, which is 4294967296.
+ */
+#define NCONSPAGES 256
+
+/**
+ * a cons page is essentially just an array of cons space objects. It might later have a local
+ * free list (i.e. list of free cells on this page) and a pointer to the next cons page, but
+ * my current view is that that's probably unneccessary.
+ */
+struct cons_page {
+  struct cons_space_object cell[CONSPAGESIZE];
+};
+
+
+/**
+ * initialise the cons page system; to be called exactly once during startup.
+ */
+void conspagesinit();
+
+#endif