Change to config hash (45623) broke partcl

[coke]

Before this change, values in the config hash were stored as an appropriate PMC type. Post-change, they are stored as strings. When partcl tries to pull out this information, it ends up using the HLL string to int conversion, which isn't yet ready to be run, which throws an error; previously it would have used the parrot type's built in conversion, which is fine to use at this point in partcl's startup.

using partcl's 747475036950a7550b5adaefe9fee5c562dec8b0 , the commit before this works; with this commit, we build but can't run anything.

(I don't think a simple revert here works, unfortunately.)

[plobsing]

partcl now has a revive branch that passes at this rev (also on the latest supported release 2.3.0).