The C Stack in interpreters - why?

I am trying to understand why the C stack is used in interpreters
rather than an explicity built stack on the heap? Up until now I
presumed that the explicit stack was how everyone did it, then I
learned that, apparently the way a lot of bytecode interpreters work
is to recursively call themselves whenever a
procedure/routine/method/whaterver is called.


Things I have been able to learn so far:


(1) A lot of languages use the C stack
(2) A lot of people complain about it and point out all of the
limitations of it.


Can someone tell me why the C stack is so often used instead of
explicit? People are willing to re-write entire interpreters in order
to get rid of the C stack (i.e. stackless python), so why do people use
the C stack for interpreters to begin with?


I am writing an interpreter and I need to know the best way to proceed
on this issue. I WOULD like to be able to embed my interpreter in C
programs and I WOULD like to be able to call C from my language.


Thanks!


MC

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