EuroForth 2004 announced talks

Nick Nelson and one of his employees will hold two talks:

1. Experiments in real time control in a Windows environment using Forth

2. A Forth wrapper for advanced Windows graphics functions

Federico de Ceballos has announced a paper:

|   Title:
|
|   OCTAVO: An Object Oriented GUI Framework
|
|   Abstract:
|
|   This paper presents a framework for building Window applications using
|   the Object Oriented tools available (in different forms) in various
|   Forth compilers. Its aims are to simplify the programming GUI
|   applications and to isolate the user from the operating system internal
|   details. As it would be expected in a Forth approach, the package tries
|   to be as light and efficient as possible, while at the same time
|   allowing those interested to understand what is taking place "under the
|   bonnet".

And Juergen Pfitzenmaier has announced a paper:

|	  On using FLint
|	by J=FCrgen Pfitzenmaier
|	 pfitzen@pfitzenmaier.de
|
|An implementation for FLint (FORTH Lint) is presented. It assigns
|a type to each word in the dictionary and to each cell on the stacks.
|The correct usage of types is checked during compilation and in
|interactive mode. In addition to types FLint also supports constraints
|to ensure that address calculations in FORTH programs yield addresses
|that are within given bounds to detect possible buffer overflow. To
|protect against stack underflow or overflow the minimum and maximum
|stack usage of each newly defined word is calculated.
|The core of FLint doesn't make any hardcoded assumptions about the FORTH
|system it is checking. It can be configured for a wide variety of systems.=

Christophe Lavarenne will give a talk:

|Title:
|"Want", a Flash Token-Threaded Virtual-Machine and Operating-System for DSPs
|
|Author: Christophe Lavarenne (cl@ubic.fr, UBIC S.A. - http://www.ubic.fr)
|
|Abstract:
|
|More and more low-cost applications (telecommunications, automotive, metering,
|alarm systems...) embed, beside a microcontroler, a Digital-Signal-Processor
|(DSP) to cope with data rates and processing under hard real-time constraints.
|For such applications, the UBIC company has developed "WantOS", a multitasking
|realtime operating system with interrupt-driven peripheral drivers, integrated
|into "WantVM", a compact and efficient token-threaded virtual-machine running,
|directly out of flash, several megabytecodes per second, programmable in either
|"WantC" with a full-featured graphical user interface, or more interactively
|in "WantForth". This paper presents this software architecture and the savings
|it has allowed, compared to usual designs, in the hardware architecture and in
|the design and life cycles of tens of thousands of remote alarm systems, and
|of new realtime video-processing projects.


Three papers from Bill Stoddart and his collegues:

|Title: A User's Introduction to the Reversible Virtual Machine.
|
|Abstract: The "Reversible Virtual Machine" (RVM) is a version of Forth
|extended to simulate logical reversibility and designed to act as a
|target language for compilation. In this paper we present the RVM
|programming environment and some example Forth programs.


|Title: Implementation Aspects of RVM.
|
|Authors Bill Stoddart and Frank Zeyda
|
|Abstract: RVM is a "native code" Forth extended to simulate logical
|reversibility and designed to act as a target language for compilation.
|In this paper we describe the implementation of RVM for an i386 Linux
|platform. We discuss the virtual machine's interaction with its Unix
|environment, the Forth/C interface, meta-compilation to gnu assembler
|code, code timing and optimisation, local variables with nested scopes,
|the implementation of sets, garbage collection and memory leak
|protection.


|Title: "Popit": Implementing a Forth like language in C and Scheme as
|student project topics for the Computer Science Degree course at the
|University of Teesside.
|
|Authors: Robert Lynas, Bill Stoddart, Frank Zeyda.
|
|Abstract: As programming environments and operating systems grow in
|complexity, students of Computer Science find it increasingly difficult
|to gain a wholistic understanding of the computer systems they study.
|"Popit" is a Forth like language designed to be implemented by students
|in order to expose them to a complete, though simple, programming system
|and virtual machine. The Popit implementation exercise is used in a
|group project module in the second year of the course, where it is
|implemented in C. In the fourth year of the course it is offered as an
|individual project to be implemented in Scheme.


Bernd Paysan:

|Title: b16-small: less is more
|Author: Bernd Paysan
|Abstract: b16 is a Forth-CPU inspired by Chuck Moore's current work. It is 
|intended at replacing state machines and other more sequential logic, 
|including calculations. When going into the first SoC design, I shrank b16 
|down to what was needed for the project, creating an off-spring called 
|b16-small. Surprisingly, the resulting architecture is closer to traditional 
|Forth than the original b16. Uncommon sense results will include that a 
|smaller design doesn't have less lines of code, that you don't need more 
|stack space than 4 or 5 cells, that a 2-digit 7-segment is all you need for 
|debugging, and that 1k of program ROM is enough.


Anton Ertl and David Gregg:

|Inlining in Gforth: Early Experiences
|David Gregg, M. Anton Ertl
|
|Many optimizations are easier or more effective for straight-line code
|(basic blocks).  Straight-line code in Forth is limited mainly by
|calls and returns.  Inlining eliminates calls and returns, which in
|turn makes the basic blocks longer, and increases the effectiveness of
|other optimizations.  In this paper we present a first prototype
|implementation of ininlining for Gforth.


|The Forth Family Tree
|M. Anton Ertl
|No abstract, but take a look at the family tree page.