From: stephenb@harlequin.co.uk (Stephen Bevan) Subject: Re: Simple marketing simulation Rationale Date: 04 Mar 1996 15:43:32 GMT Message-ID: References: <4hcejb$hjf@chile.it.earthlink.net> In-reply-to: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk's message of Mon, 4 Mar 1996 10:53:13 GMT In article h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) writes: One reason I have stopped my subscription to Dr. Dobbs Journal was that Forth virtually disappeared from it. (Half of it is advertisement anyway.) Should I write them a letter and complain about it? You could, but now wouldn't be a good time, they just published an article on Forth in their latest issue :- @article { Yuen:ddj:stpp:1996 , author= "Andy Yuen" , email= "andy_yuen@sydney.sterling.com" , title= "A Tiny Preemptive Multitasking Forth" , journal= ddj:stpp , number= 245 , pages= "58--68" , month= mar , year= 1996 , refs= 0 , checked= 19960302 , source= "Computer Science Library, University of Manchester" , abstract= "Andy describes how you can provide support for preemptive multitasking, semaphores (for task synchronization), and Forth interrupt-service routines for the 16-bit 8086 eForth -- with only 1K of additional code." } From: stan@stan.asd.sgi.com (Stan Bailes) Subject: Re: Tcl/Tk Date: 4 Mar 1996 17:09:53 GMT Message-ID: <4hf851$82r@murrow.corp.sgi.com> References: <4h9dsc$qtv@iaehv.iaehv.nl> In article <4h9dsc$qtv@iaehv.iaehv.nl>, Marcel Hendrix wrote: >Recently somebody wrote Re: Tcl/Tk and Forth > >>> One of my students has developed an interface between the >>> 32-bit windows port of Tcl/Tk and MPE's ProForth for Windows. > >And I asked: > >> **Who's done the port of Tcl/Tk to Windows?! Is it commercial?** > >... and didn't get an answer on that. > >The package in question is called twine. I found it at ftp.tuwien.ac.at >in pub/languages/tcl/distrib (twinebin.README twinebin.zip twinesrc.README >and twinesrc.zip). It works exactly like the Xwindows thing, but is noticably >slower and looks ugly in places. That, however, is a small price to pay... > >-marcel Sun has done the ports to Windows and Mac OS. See: http://www.sunlabs.com/research/tcl/ Stan -- Stan Bailes e-mail: stan@sgi.com Silicon Graphics, Mountain View, CA voice: (415) 933-1995 When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: Immediacy in the ANSI standard Date: 4 Mar 1996 18:28:03 GMT Message-ID: <4hfcnj$69n@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: <4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) X-URL: news:4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) wrote: > (all further >sections also refer to the standard; my draft is v6) [...] >Many apologies if these points are fixed up in the final standard, but I >can't afford one, my department has refused to buy one, and I haven't yet >got round to printing a copy of the Word file (which I have, but I don't >have Word). STOP PRESS: Am getting this together, though thwarted by >various technologies. If what you mean is dpANS6, that is not too different from the final version, except the organization was improved and many typos and inconsistencies were fixed. If you somehow mean BASIS6, it's hopelessly out of date and wrong! To comment briefly on your main points: (1) In most implementations, a word must be immediate in order to be able to decide whether to execute the compilation or interpretation semantics. (2) There's nothing inconsistent about being able to find the execution token of a word without interpretation semantic, but there are restrictions on when it's appropriate to execute it! A word has to have an xt in order for references to it to be compiled. The problem is that ' (tick) cannot be _guaranteed_ in all implementations to return an appropriate xt for such words. Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ From: David Fulton Subject: System Development Survey Message-ID: <1996Mar4.180151.43965@ucl.ac.uk> Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 18:01:51 GMT X-Url: news:comp.lang.clos Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (X11; I; SunOS 4.1.3_U1 sun4c) System Development Survey Dear Reader, This survey is part of a PhD research study looking at the links between the organisational context in which a system is developed, the problem being tackled and the system development strategy utilised. Currently, knowledge of the type of pressures and problems faced by developers is fragmented across case studies particular to individual disciplines (HCI, Safety-related etc). I am looking for input from system development professionals from a range of disciplines in order that parallels (and contrasting interpretations) across different areas of system development can be drawn. Those of you with form-compatible WWW browsers are cordially invited to contribute to this research by accessing a survey web-page at: http://boom.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/dfulton/survey.html For those who are interested in the research but do not have form-compatible web browsers, a text version follows which can be returned to: dfulton@cs.ucl.ac.uk Many thanks! David Fulton -------------------------------------------------- Please fill in all sections in as much detail as possible. The form should take around 10-15 minutes to complete. Personal details are only recorded so that we can get back to you - if required. Otherwise, individuals remain anonymous and your input is kept confidential. Your name: Organisation: Email Addr: 1: The Project You are asked to complete this questionnaire in relation to a recent (or current) project with which you are familiar. 1.1) What was the title of the project? 1.2) Please give a brief description of the project? (if possible): 1.3) What system characteristics did the product incorporate? (more than one of the options can be ticked by marking them with an 'X'): ___ Interactive ___ Safety-Related * ___ Real-Time ___ Embedded * ___ Defence * Safety-related projects being developments where safety (in whatever form) is an important non-functional requirement. Embedded projects being software systems that are used to run hardware 2: Focus of Analysis/Initial Statement of Objectives 2.1) Please mark the development paradigm used by the project: ___ In-house development- for another part of the company ___ Contract-based development- for an outside client ___ Generic/Shrink-Wrap development- for general use 2.2) Which of the following most closely describe the starting point for the project? ___ The project started out without a clear view of the system to be developed, or of the underlying problem to be tackled ___ The project started out with an explicit problem to tackle but without a clear definition of the expected application ___ The project started with an explicit problem to ameliorate and a clear definition of the expected application ___ The project started with an explicit problem to solve and a clear definition of the expected application. In addition, the client has set the acceptance criteria for the project, and penalty provisions if criteria were not met 3: Development Pressures 3.1) Was the system to be developed designed to replace an existing manual or automated organisational system? ___ Yes? ___ No? 3.2) Which of the following describes the development pressures (in generating and using requirements) faced by the project? NB: Only make a choice here if the system was to be used by a user/operator and had an identifiable user population. ___ Users/Representatives had little or no experience with a system of this kind. As a result, they were unable to offer tangible requirements or ideas until a concrete representation (prototype) was available ___ Users/Representatives had some experience with similar systems in the past and they were able to put forward ideas and requirements for future systems The next section looks at the skills of developers and the degree to which their familiarity with the application being developed contributed to their knowledge of a suitable definition. 3.3) Which of the following, in your opinion, describes the degree to which developers (in general) were experienced in this type of development? ___ Developers had limited experience in developing a system of this kind and some experimentation was required to evaluate technical options ___ Developers had some experience of developing similar systems in the past and had a limited ability to predict changes or other types of uncertainty ___ Developers were experts in a particular problem domain and had a clearer understanding of technical options and possible solutions 4: The Organisational Context In considering the organisational context, we are really looking at the context within which the project is based, and are therefore looking at the structures and processes (specific to the project) within the developer organisation, the client organisation (if the two differ), and developer/client communication. 4.1: Structure of the project 4.1.1) Which of the following most closely describe the job roles within the project? ___ Responsibilities and job roles were explicitly defined. No-one on the project could carry out tasks for which they did not have authorisation ___ While there were notional job roles and responsibilities, project personnel tended to carry out a range of tasks when they were required to do so 4.1.2) Which of the following most closely describes the manner in which changes or requests for verification were addressed? ___ All requests for changes had to be routed via the project manager or to personnel at a higher level in the project structure. ___ Possible changes would generally be discussed by the appropriate parties before action was decided (on an informal basis). 4.2: Processes within the project 4.2.1) Which of the following describe the degree of stability in project-related processes? ___ Processes were largely stable. Interaction between stakeholders in the project occured at pre-determined times. ___ Processes were subject to change. Interaction between stakeholders in the project was random - occured as and when needed. 5: System Development Strategy 5.1) In your opinion, which of the following points most closely summarise the system development strategy that was taken? ___ The emphasis was on a constantly changing specification, adaptive code and minimal use of design documentation. ___ The emphasis was on the use of experimental methods, including evolutionary or iterative prototyping. ___ The emphasis was on producing a robust design and implementation, but allowing limited flexibility and ability to react to change. ___ The emphasis was on the production of error-free code and an accurate transformation of the specification into design material. 5.2) Which of the following most closely match the model of development used? ___ Stage-based models of development: A variation on the waterfall software life-cycle model is used ___ Iterative models of development: Spiral or iterative build models of development are utilised 5.3) Which of the following most closely match the emphasis of the development strategy? ___ Emphasis on high-level design: Design activities are closely regulated and monitored ___ Emphasis on a mixture of high and low-level design: Although some procedural restrictions may be in place, low-level design tasks are largely unregulated ___ Emphasis on low-level design: There was little regulation of day to day practice 6: Outstanding issues 6.1) As far as you can recollect, what forms of changing requirements had a particular impact on the project and what was the extent of that impact? Answers on the bi-polar scale refer to how confident you are with options at each end of the scale. If you feel that there is a 'major impact' choose the option on the far right. If you felt there was some impact, but you don't feel you could define it using either of the opposing labels, then choose one of the options in-between 6.1.1) Mutable Requirements: Changes brought about by changing organisational goals and environmental turbulence eg. change because of organisational restructuring mid-way through the project Negligable impact 1 2 3 4 5 Major impact 6.1.2) Consequential Requirements: Changes brought about as a consequence of particular design decisions, or through the testing of prototypes eg. change when users discover new ways of working etc, change when technical staff discover a new way of solving a technical problem Negligable impact 1 2 3 4 5 Major impact 6.1.3) Migration Requirements: Changes when there are difficulties in moving from the current state to the desired state eg, change when considerations have to be made for the technical platforms the working version will have to work on, data management etc Negligable impact 1 2 3 4 5 Major impact 6.1.4) Emergent Requirements: Changes when participants slowly develop a better understanding of what they really want eg, Users clarifying what they really want and negating previous requirements Negligable impact 1 2 3 4 5 Major impact 6.2) Was a method or methodology used in order to aid the analysis and design of the system? ___ Yes? ___ No? 6.3) If the answer to the last question was 'Yes', which method(ology) was used? ___ Information Engineering ___ SSADM ___ Yourdon (or SA/SD) ___ A Systems approach (SSM, ETHICS etc) ___ An Object-Oriented Method ___ Jackson Structured Design or other (please specify) 6.4) if the answer to question 6.2 was 'yes'- Was the method used in its entirety? ___ Yes? ___ No? If not, what aspects of the method were not used, and why? 6.5) Which of the following tools or techniques were used on the project? (A number of selections can be made) ___ Structure Charts ___ Data Flow Diagrams ___ Entity-Life Histories ___ Brainstorming ___ JAD Workshops ___ Prototyping Reviews ___ Entity-Relationship Models ___ Rich Pictures ___ Flow-Charts ___ Class diagrams ___ State Transition Diagrams ___ Storyboarding or other (please specify) 7.1.1) New requirements or changing requirements were coming in at too fast a rate for us to cope effectively Not Applicable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Applicable 7.1.2) It would have been nice if we could get together with the user representatives on a more regular basis, as it was, we were just getting too little feedback Not Applicable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Applicable 7.1.3) We had a number of difficulties in fitting the approach we took with the quality assurance procedures that we had to follow Not Applicable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Applicable 7.1.4) Turnover of staff (with connections to the project) was a major problem and distrupted the project. Not Applicable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Applicable 7.1.5) Too much attention was paid to user interface issues and not enough to the underlying functionality of the system Not Applicable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Applicable 7.1.6) Getting agreement on changes was a time-consuming process, even when the change seemed to be very minor. Not Applicable 1 2 3 4 5 Very Applicable 8: General Comments Are there any other aspects of development practice that you feel are particularly important and haven't been covered within this survey? Are there any other points that you would like to make? 9: On completion of this survey would you like a summary of results? ___ Yes? ___ No? Many thanks for taking the time to fill in this form! David Fulton Department of Computer Science University College London From: MABS85B@prodigy.com (Leo Wong) Subject: Re: FINALLY, The Sokoban Contest Winner Date: 4 Mar 1996 21:51:17 GMT Message-ID: <4hfokl$t3m@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com> Dear Rick, Thank you for awarding me the prize. I quite understand that the other entries were worthy and that the judging was subjective. Some of the solutions were more ingenious or had more features than mine. I was glad to be able to include a little hommage to Charles Moore, who said that the map is not the territory. I look forward to seeing your and others' comments on the individual entries. - LEO WONG MABS85B@prodigy.com New York State Department of Civil Service Albany, NY 12239 From: color@pophost.eunet.be (Bart Lateur) Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 17:52:03 GMT Message-ID: <4h4oso$ego@news.Belgium.EU.net> References: <824654539snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> <825240126snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: bart@color.pophost.eunet.be Also sprach Chris Jakeman : >I started this thread by writing: >> Zero errors? >> Not possible ... how about minimising errors then? >> >> VARIABLE and ALLOT supply data space without initialising it. >> Failing to initialise values is a major source of errors, so how about >> redefining VARIABLE (just during development) to supply the initial value: > DECIMAL -32767 CONSTANT unlikely > : VARIABLE ( -- ) CREATE unlikely , ; >Thanks to Ulrich and all the others who improved on my definition for >VARIABLE. The idea is to highlight a programming error, so that it >becomes obvious at once during normal testing. We could do the same thing >for ALLOT. >Actually I didn't expect many comments on my code for VARIABLE - I was really >looking for responses to the _question_ I posed! >> Is there anywhere else we could do this sort of thing? >I was thinking of gathering tips on minimising programming errors. Does >anyone have any other tips on highlighting errors or even preventing them? Whoops! Indeed, we all got a little sidetracked, loosing ourself in implementation details. I think, that relying upon preinitialised values for variables is dangerous. But then again, why not make a separate routine, say INIT (ain't I original :-) that initializes ALL your variables. You could write a test routine that stores the "unlikely" value into all your debug variables. You run INIT, and then check if any of the values is still unitialized. Voilà! No chance of forgetting some varaiable on the way. Testing is only reliable if *all* possible control flow paths have (sufficiently) been traversed. In your proposal, if this is not the case, some variables might sneak though the tests, and still remain uninitialized. Some implementation details (just maybe?): how about using some kind of "shadow memory" instead, whose purpouse is to contain some flags (one of them being the "uninitialized" flag). The DEBUG versions of ! and @ might set or test the flag, corresponding to the variable as well. Coming to that, why not making some memory areas ILLEGAL, both inside FORTH's own memory using these flags, as well as (practically everything) outside of it? While debugging, @ and ! may check for range errors resp. (unintended) self modifying code as well. Wow, I think I might have hit the jackpot here. {Bart} From: Brad Rodriguez Subject: Re: Networking resources Date: 2 Mar 1996 13:27:41 GMT Message-ID: <4h9icd$5gt@news.bellglobal.com> References: <4h7f02$qr5@dfw-ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1PE (Windows; I; 16bit) JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) wrote: >My brother-in-law is taking a networking course, and is getting buried >in detail. Are there any good books that provide an overview of OSI >etc? Something that explains how the pieces fit together? I think well of Andrew Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks". ISBN 0-13-162959-X. -- Brad Rodriguez bj@headwaters.com Computers on the Small Scale Contributing Editor, The Computer Journal... http://www.psyber.com/~tcj Director, Forth Interest Group........... http://www.forth.org/fig.html -=> 1996 Rochester Forth Conference: June 19-22 in Toronto, Ontario <=- Register now & save! See http://maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca/~ns/96roch.html From: JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Date: 5 Mar 1996 02:16:43 GMT Message-ID: <4hg86b$4m6@cloner4.netcom.com> References: <4gl97o$abh@cloner2.ix.netcom.com> X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Mar 04 6:16:43 PM PST 1996 In japs@netcom.com (Jim Schneider) writes: >In verec@micronet.fr >(Jean-Francois Brouillet) writes: >>Isn't it funny to see so many people taking so many precautions to comply >>with ANS Forth standard, and still assume a 16 bit model ? >-- >>DECIMAL 1 8 CELLS 1- LSHIFT 1- CONSTANT unlikely >-- >Unfortunately, this assumes that a CHAR sized address unit is 8 bits. I have >seen a system where it made sense to use a 10 bit char. I was going to let this go. Jean-Francois didn't say anything about chars. On a 16-bit system, he gets 1 8 CELLS ( 1 16 ) 1- ( 1 15 ) LSHIFT ( $8000 ) 1- ( $7FFF ) On a 32-bit system, he gets 1 8 CELLS ( 1 32 ) 1- ( 1 31 ) LSHIFT ( $80000000 ) 1- ( $7FFFFFFF ) This assumes 2's complement. On a 1's complement 32-bit system he'd get 1 8 CELLS ( 1 32 ) 1- ( 1 31 ) LSHIFT ( $80000000 ) 1- ( $7FFFFFFF ) just as before, but the intermediate number counts as 1 less than the 2's complement one. $8000 is -32768 one way and -32767 the other. I don't know whether to expect the system to trap the overflow. On a sign magnitude system he'd get 1 8 CELLS ( 1 32 ) 1- ( 1 31 ) LSHIFT ( $80000000 ) 1- ( $80000000 | 1 ) -0 has a special meaning in both sign magnitude and 1's-complement, and it's usually a "sticky" number, once you get it you can't get rid of it with arithmetic. As far as I know, I've never seen a sign magnitude processor. >All of this is somewhat besides the point of the original post. Since >the original poster wanted a *DEBUGGING* version of VARIABLE that he >could check to see if it was initialized properly, any (usually) >unique bit pattern would do. So, for his machine, I would recommend >whatever bit pattern he felt he could reliably distinguish from live >data. Yes. One of my points is that you can't choose a bit pattern that will work for everybody. Whatever you choose, someday you'll have live data that uses it. So if you're going to _depend_ on automatic checking, you need to be able to choose that number fresh. From: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) Subject: Re: Simple marketing simulation Rationale Message-ID: References: <4hdusi$nc9@news.asu.edu> Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 17:14:15 GMT forthist@imap2.asu.edu wrote: > >Its perception as a dead language and basic human nature are working >against Forth. If I were a typical C/assembler programmer developing >embedded systems, why would I switch? If C can do what Forth does >and management doesn't pressure me to switch, then there's no way I'd >switch. Forth might save time, but that's company time. When I started to develop my OOF I was pretty much convinced that Forth is that and nobody else is using it (do you hear me Elizabeth ;-). After I had my system up and running I tried to contact FIG an n+1st time and finally I have succeded. The perception IS that Forth is dead and if I did not hear about it in my undergrad years I would never think about it as a possible solution. On the other hand if I had to write my Robot controlling program in C I would feel like having had a time travel back to the stone ages. Forth really has advantages but you need a certain level of culture to appreciate that. Andras From: JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) Subject: Re: FINALLY, The Sokoban Contest Winner Date: 5 Mar 1996 02:18:25 GMT Message-ID: <4hg89h$aqj@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> References: <4h2nh1$2hs@fnord.dfw.net> X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Mar 04 6:18:25 PM PST 1996 In <4h2nh1$2hs@fnord.dfw.net> rick@thunder-ink.com (Rick VanNorman) writes: > Leo Wong, please step forward. Congratulations, Leo! From: Vital Press Subject: Vital Announces New Version Of CRiSP Programmers Editor Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------30E275F17102" Message-ID: <313BC54C.382C@vital.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 04:38:36 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (X11; I; HP-UX A.09.05 9000/712) This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------30E275F17102 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -- Cheers Email: support@vital.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vital Inc. | CRiSP Visual Editor - 100% Softbench Encapsulated 4109 Candlewyck Drive | Information: info@vital.com Plano, TX 75024. U.S.A | Orders: orders@vital.com Ph: +1 (214) 491-6907 | Support: support@vital.com Fax: +1 (214) 491-6909 | WEB Site: http://www.vital.com --------------30E275F17102 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline; filename="net42.txt" Vital, Inc. 4109 Candlewyck Drive Plano. TX 75024, U.S.A Vital Announces New Version Of CRiSP, Multiplatform Visual Text Editor For Immediate Release March 4, 1996 Contact: Gigi Mehrotra Vital, Inc. Ph: +1 (214) 491-6907, Fax: +1 (214) 491-6909 Email: info@vital.com Plano,TX, March 4, 1996 - Vital Inc, today demonstrated a new version of CRiSP 4.2, the only graphical file editor for both X and Windows platforms. The new release incorporates several major new enhancements. In addition, the product's user interface has received its first major facelift, and is tuned tuned for Motif and Windows 95. Some of the new features include: ================================= Complete encapsulation with HP Softbench 3.0/4.0/5.0, Centerline's CodeCenter, Microsoft Visual C / C++ development environments. Integrated support for IPC, Named Pipes, Message passing with external 3rd party applications. Dynamic screen colorization and colorized printing for 40 new languages. Personalized toolbars / tool icons. Brand new GUI Mail interface. Recallable Named Projects, and keyboard macros. 64 bit compatibility across all platforms. Support for unlimited file / column sizes with dynamic memory models. (Win3 & Win/NT) Printing is now possible using the standard printer common dialog boxes. According to President Paul Fox "CRiSP 4.2.2 is designed to avoid needing to learn yet-another-keyboard layout, across multiple platforms. CRiSP 4.2 is a modern editor for today's Open System platforms. It is useful within minutes of starting the software up, and its capabilities grow with customers use of the product." CRiSP has native X, Windows, Character based environments on the following platforms: SunOS 4.x, Solaris 2.x - Intel, Solaris 2.x - Sparc, HP/UX 9.x 700/800 Series, IBM-RS6000, SGI-IRIX, DEC Alpha - Unix, DEC Ultrix, Motorola, Linux, LynxOS, CRAY, DataGeneral, SCO UNIX, Unixware, Windows-NT, Windows 95, Windows 3.1. About CRiSP: CRiSP is a modern file editor suitable for programmers and other professionals who need to edit files. It incorporates most of the advanced concepts of vi, Emacs, BRIEF and various Windows products whilst presenting the most intuitive user interface possible. It includes many advanced features which demanding professionals have come to expect in an advanced development environment, including customizable toolbar support, floating help, syntax coloring, template editing, etc. This all leads to an aesthetically pleasing user interface which requires no learning at all to get started. All of this is configurable and customizable. CRiSP dynamic syntax coloring adds a new dimension to the coding cycle. You see your code in a new light! Such trivial issues as blocks of code accidentally being commented out are a thing of the past because your eyes now tell you something is wrong. CRiSP is designed to avoid needing to learn yet-another-keyboard layout. It is designed to be useful within minutes of starting the software up, and its capabilities grow with your use of the product. It does not get in the way of what you want to do, and in fact offers facilities such as entirely mouse-driven editing, to entirely keyboard-driven editing. How you use CRiSP is up to you. There are no limitations in the scope for which it can be used. About Vital, Inc Vital Inc provides software technologies that enable corporations to increase the productivity levels of their development engineers. The company also develops various client/server development tools. Founded in 1991, Vital is located in Plano, Texas. --------------30E275F17102-- From: Chris Jakeman Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Date: Sat, 02 Mar 96 09:09:26 GMT Message-ID: <825757766snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> References: <824654539snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> <63ly1S167QB@business.forth-ev.de> Reply-To: cjakeman@apvpeter.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: apvpeter.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: apvpeter.demon.co.uk In article <63ly1S167QB@business.forth-ev.de> All@business.forth-ev.de "Wolfgang Allinger" writes: > On 25 Feb 96 in article <825240126snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> > (Chris Jakeman) wrote: > >I was thinking of gathering tips on minimising programming errors. > >Does anyone have any other tips on highlighting errors or even > >preventing them? > > Hi all & Chris > > use free my small points as you like. > > Chris will you collect these and make a FAQ of all the answers and > comments to your initial request? That would help us all. Thank you. > > In the Proceedings of the Rochester Forth Conference 1990 pg. 34... I > presented "Some Tips, Tricks and Experiences" and "Threading Code and > Wool" where you find some small things, which helped me for minimising > errors. > > For newcomers and those who didn't have access to the Rochester > proccedings I collect some and add some more tips and experiences: <8 tips follow> Many thanks Wolfgang. I will indeed gather together any useful tips that appear on comp.lang.forth. We could review them through the newsgroup and find an ftp site for them. How about it Forthers? Send in your tips today ... Bye for now _ _______________________| |_____ Chris Jakeman / _Forth_Interest_Group_| |____/ / /_ __ ______ _ _ | | __ at Peterborough / __/ / / / __ / | | | | | |/ / (a cathedral city / / / / / /_/ / | \_| | | < 80 miles north of London) /_/ /_/ /___ / \____| |_|\_\ Where do you come from? / / ______________/ / United Kingdom Voice +44 (0)1733 346477 /_______________/ Chapter From: JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) Subject: Forth Programmers Date: 5 Mar 1996 02:31:22 GMT Message-ID: <4hg91q$f30@cloner2.ix.netcom.com> X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Mar 04 6:31:22 PM PST 1996 A long time ago, Elizabeth Rather said: >Some issues to consider: >1. As nearly as I can tell, less than 10% of our customers are FIG >members, not half. This is an issue I raised at the last FIG board, and >one I hope we can consider at more length this year. The perception >among many professionals is that FIG is a hobbyist organization. I had the idea that about half of FIG members were professionals, not that half of Forth professionals were FIG members. With about a thousand FIG members and an estimated 4000 Forth professionals, that would be 1/8 or about 12%, higher than your number but not dramatically so. >2. There are quite a few new programmers getting involved with Forth >thanks to Open Firmware. We trained about 45 at IBM last year, and >have trained nearly 30 at Motorola. None of them have joined FIG as >far as I know. There are quite a few more learning Forth in this >connection that we aren't in any position to know about or count. That's significant! Nearly 2% of the estimated total, in one year, in a couple of big companies! >3. As indicated above, there is a very weak mapping of professional >Forth users to FIG members. A few years ago I happened to sit next to >the head of a FIG chapter of about 30 members, none of whom were >professional Forth users. At the time, I knew of a major project >going on in his town with about a dozen Forth programmers. I told >them there was a FIG chapter, but none were interested. I also >mentioned to several of our other customers in that town that there >was a FIG chapter, but they weren't interested, either. In general, >they felt that their use of Forth was work, and in the evenings they >wanted to play. I am inclined to agree! But the moral of this story >is that subsequently the FIG chapter failed because "there wasn't >enough interest in Forth" in that town, and several of our customers >dropped Forth because "there weren't any Forth programmers in that >town." There's a moral in here somewhere... Yes! I'm increasingly clear that a FIG chapter that has a monthly meeting with an interesting speaker still isn't meeting very many needs. It's worthwhile to pass out freeware and shareware compilers as a minor activity. The MFIG meetings that got the most favorable comment were the ones organized around collectively coding a solution to some problem. But maybe the people who don't like that just stop coming rather than complain. There probably isn't any one answer for what FIG chapters should do, but somehow they should help the new people learn Forth and spread the word about Forth activities and jobs, and so on. I'm interested in questions of management; what exactly are the issues that make Forth look like a bad choice to managers who're not going to use it themselves, but lots of people don't want to deal with that in any detail. I'm not sure how to make it valuable for professionals and hobbyists at the same time. >3. We hear this tale of "there aren't any Forth programmers..." >regularly, from both our customers and prospects. Just recently, a >company (our customer) in Mass. has been pleading for Forth job >applicants here, through several postings over several months. How >many of you responded? Think about this carefully before complaining >that there aren't any Forth jobs! We may be having problems that would even out if there were more of us. Ideally, a few percent of the Forth professionals could be ready for new work at any one time, and that would be enough to give a wide selection to anyone who wanted to hire. There may be a related problem -- maybe a lot of Forth programmers are EE's, hardware guys who don't particularly think of themselves as programmers. They might pick up Forth quicker if they haven't spent too much time on traditional languages. It would be a useful tool, but not something they'd think of as central. They'd look for EE jobs instead of programming jobs. This is only a problem for people who're trying to market Forth, we'd get a lot of Forth users who wouldn't think to talk about why they used Forth any more than they'd talk about why they used AutoCad or pSPICE or a particular brand of voltmeter. They wouldn't want Forth Dimensions. From: eBqSoaWU@jumbo.com Subject: Forth related files shareware + 64,000 other pgms $ # Date: 5 Mar 1996 05:09:52 -0500 Expires: 19 Mar 1996 Message-ID: <4hh3tg$24o@dev.jumbo.com> All the Forth related files freeware and shareware programs we've been able to find...plus another 64,000 + programs are currently on JUMBO! (http://www.jumbo.com) -- -- Over 1,200,000 links for fast and easy and access to more than 250 sites! AND -- Never any waiting -- PLUS -- full descriptions of every program BEFORE downloading -- PLUS -- Thousands of new programs are being added weekly beginning the week of 01/15! Access us at: http://www.jumbo.com/prog/dos/forth/ From: rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) Subject: Re: Immediacy in the ANSI standard Date: 5 Mar 1996 10:14:36 GMT Message-ID: <4hh46c$sn@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <4hfcnj$69n@chile.it.earthlink.net> >If what you mean is dpANS6, that is not too different from the final version, I had dpANS6, but see that all the wording is the same in the file on ftp.uu.net. >(1) In most implementations, a word must be immediate in order to be able to >decide whether to execute the compilation or interpretation semantics. This I understand, but many words in the Standard which would be immediate in such compilers have their immediacy unspecified; I wonder why the others do need it specified. -- Web page: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rrt1001/ From: rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) Subject: Re: FINALLY, The Sokoban Contest Winner Date: 5 Mar 1996 10:16:59 GMT Message-ID: <4hh4ar$v2@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <4hfokl$t3m@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com> In article <4hfokl$t3m@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com>, Leo Wong wrote: [snip] >I was glad to be able to include a little hommage to Charles Moore, who >said that the map is not the territory. That was Alfred Korzybski originally. Where can one find the entries? I like Sokoban & Forth, & would like to see some code. -- Web page: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rrt1001/ From: nes2481@aztec.asu.edu (CHARLES ALVIN GRAY JR) Subject: Re: How do I "forget" entire dictionaries? Date: 5 Mar 1996 15:09:55 GMT Message-ID: <4hhlg3$hfo@news.asu.edu> References: Reply-To: nes2481@aztec.asu.edu (CHARLES ALVIN GRAY JR) In a previous article, ericr@pets.sps.mot.com (Eric Rainbolt) says: > >I am writing an application in forth where I load >modules via a menu using INCLUDED. If I chose >the menu item again, I reload the module and all >the forth words over again, except I get "(word) >is not unique" warning messages. I happen to create >a seperate vocabulary for each module. Is there a >way I can "forget" an entire vocabulary so I will >not get the warning messages and use up more memory? > > Much appreciated, > > Eric Rainbolt > There was an article in Volume IX, number 5 of Forth Demensions entitled Module Management that I have been using. it works quite well an avoids the problem of loading words more than once. It uses a very few words. : MODULE ( block # ) CREATE , DOES> @ LOAD ; : LOADMAP: ( -- address ) CREATE HERE -1 , DOES> @ ABORT" Module error" ; : LOADED ( address ) 0 SWAP ! ; briefly it works like this: 100 MODULE GRAPHICS In block 100 you would have: LOADMAP: GRAPHICS This is followed by the load instructions and then: LOADED If the module is already loaded, it won't be reloaded and if the is an error in the loading process, the abort message is called. I hope this is some help to you. -- Charlie -- Packet addr: AA7QB @KC7Y.az.usa.noam Internet addr: nes2481@aztec.asu.edu From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: Simple marketing simulation Rationale Date: 5 Mar 1996 21:05:40 GMT Message-ID: <4hiab4$1vk@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: <4hcejb$hjf@chile.it.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) X-URL: news:Dnqowq.4wH@hkuxb.hku.hk h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) wrote: > One reason I have stopped my subscription to Dr. Dobbs Journal was >that Forth virtually disappeared from it. (Half of it is >advertisement anyway.) >Should I write them a letter and complain about it? > >Andras > >P.S.: Unfortunately the other reason was their dishonest service. >They have charged me more than the price of the magazine for first >class air mail from the US to Hong Kong and in fact they shipped >as bulk and distributed from their Kowloon office (abot five miles from >here on the other side of the harbour), I guess I can call it >confidence triction. :-( Sure, write about both! Ideally, separate letters, as they need to be referred to separate departments. Most publications respect feedback. They know that a minuscule fraction of the public takes the time to write, and so multiply every message by many! Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ From: John Dunn Subject: 32-bit Forth for Win 95? Date: 5 Mar 1996 21:33:22 GMT Message-ID: <4hibv2$gkj@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.22 (Windows; I; 32bit) We are in need of a solid commercial Forth for Windows 95. The only one I have seen is ProForth, from a company in the UK, and distributed in the US by Forth, Inc. Two questions: Has anyone used this package, and can comment on it? Are there any other commercial (or well documented, robust and fast non-commercial) 32 bit Forths for Windows 95? ------------------------------------------------------------ John Dunn, Research Fellow University of Michigan School of Art e-mail: johndunn@umich.edu Software Tools for Artists e-mail: stfa@webcom.com home page: http://www.webcom.com/~stfa/ From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Date: 6 Mar 1996 03:11:49 GMT Message-ID: <4hivpl$ctk@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: <824654539snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> <63ly1S167QB@business.forth-ev.de> <825757766snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) X-URL: news:825757766snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk Chris Jakeman wrote: >I will indeed gather together any useful tips that appear on comp.lang.forth. >We could review them through the newsgroup and find an ftp site for them. The FIG site at Taygeta would be a great place, and I'm sure Forth Dimensions would love to publish them, maybe even as an ongoing feature. Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ Date: 05 Mar 1996 23:30:00 +0100 From: All@business.forth-ev.de (Wolfgang Allinger) Message-ID: <64GzFWdb7QB@business.forth-ev.de> References: <824654539snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> <63ly1S167QB@business.forth-ev.de> <847@purr.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Zero Errors? X-Charset: ISO-8859-1 On 04 Mar 96 in article <847@purr.demon.co.uk> (Jack Campin) wrote: > >All@business.forth-ev.de (Wolfgang Allinger) writes: >[ good ideas, and this... ] >> (5) use stenographic reports > >> Put a flag in your system, which enables a stenographic report via >> serial interface of every user key pressed and give all user keys >> a simple (one) character nickname. -- snipp -- >Ulp. Covert channel, anyone?... > >I really don't think you want this functionality lying about in >anything that people might be typing passwords or credit card >numbers into... Hallo Jack, you are right. I'm sorry, that I didn't make it clear enough, that these feature is mainly used to debug a (my) system. It should be clear, that such a routine shouldn't be implemented in the final application, if it may unveil some secrets. Thanks for your comment bye Wolfgang -- FORTHing @ work Cheap Fast Good ...pick any two of them Dipl.-Ing. Wolfgang Allinger Brander Weg 6 Voice/FAX [+49] [0] 212 / 66 8 11 D-42699 SOLINGEN eMail: all@business.forth-ev.de GERMANY ## CrossPoint v3.02 R ## From: "Paul E. Bennett" Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Date: Tue, 05 Mar 96 21:25:52 GMT Message-ID: <826061152snz@tcontec.demon.co.uk> References: <824654539snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> <825240126snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> <4h4oso$ego@news.Belgium.EU.net> Reply-To: peb@transcontech.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: tcontec.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: tcontec.demon.co.uk In article <4h4oso$ego@news.Belgium.EU.net> bart@color.pophost.eunet.be "Bart Lateur" writes: > I think, that relying upon preinitialised values for variables is > dangerous. But then again, why not make a separate routine, say INIT > (ain't I original :-) that initializes ALL your variables. You could > write a test routine that stores the "unlikely" value into all your > debug variables. You run INIT, and then check if any of the values is > still unitialized. Voil! > > No chance of forgetting some varaiable on the way. Testing is only > reliable if *all* possible control flow paths have (sufficiently) been > traversed. In your proposal, if this is not the case, some variables > might sneak though the tests, and still remain uninitialized. Writing just one INIT routine to initialise all the variables in an application may lead you to missing one or two and be a problem to check if your Mega-App uses a large number overall. We all de-compose the problem into smaller functions and a group of words looks after a specific entity. Make many INIT words which are picked up by the overall INIT when the application is finished. ie: : INIT (S -- ) COMMS-INIT PRINTER-INIT VIDEO-INIT ......... ; This way, when the app is started and INIT is run it visits each and every initialisation sequence in turn. Each individual sequence is kept with the other words that deal with those areas and, as is good practice, should have been tested as part of the group. -- Paul E. Bennett peb@transcontech.co.uk Going Forth Safely From: rick@thunder-ink.com (Rick VanNorman) Subject: Re: FINALLY, The Sokoban Contest Winner Date: Tue, 05 Mar 96 14:02:46 GMT Message-ID: <4hhhbc$609@fnord.dfw.net> References: <4hfokl$t3m@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com> <4hh4ar$v2@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Keyword: sokoban In article <4hh4ar$v2@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) wrote: >Where can one find the entries? I like Sokoban & Forth, & would like to >see some code. All of the entries are available from my web page at: http://www.thunder-ink.com/chief/sokoban.html along with links to email feedback to. Feedback is _still_ appreciated. And, for what it's worth, I didn't get much feedback at all regarding the contest entries. Somewhat disappointing..... Rick VanNorman rick@thunder-ink.com http://www.thunder-ink.com/chief From: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) Subject: Forth and AI Message-ID: Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 09:53:52 GMT Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. Any pointers or references are welcome! Andras From: stephenb@harlequin.co.uk (Stephen Bevan) Subject: Re: Forth and AI Date: 06 Mar 1996 10:31:00 GMT Message-ID: References: In-reply-to: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk's message of Wed, 6 Mar 1996 09:53:52 GMT In article h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) writes: Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. Any pointers or references are welcome! I don't personally, but I didn't come across the following :- @article { Paloski:Odette:Krever:West:jfar:1987 , author= "William H. Paloski and Louis L. Odette and Alfred J. Krever and Allison K. West" , title= "Use of a Forth-Based Prolog for Real-Time Expert Systems I. Spacelab Life Sciences Experiment Application" , journal= jfar , volume= 4 , number= 4 , pages= "463--476" , year= 1987 , checked= 19940317 , abstract= "A real-time expert system is being developed to serve as the astronaut interface for a series of Spacelab vestibular experiments. This expert system is written in a version of Prolog that is itself written in Forth. The Prolog contains a predicate that can be used to execute Forth definitions; thus, the Forth becomes an embedded real-time operating system within the Prolog programming environment. The expert system consists of a data base containing detailed operational instructions for each experiment, a rule base containing Prolog clauses used to determine the next stop in the experiment sequence, and a procedure base containing Prolog goals formed from real-time routines coded in Forth. In this paper, we demonstrate and describe the techniques and considerations used to develop this real-time expert system, and we conclude that Forth-based Prolog provides a viable implementation vehicle for this and similar applications." } @article { Odette:Paloski:jfar:1987 , author= "L. L. Odette and W. H. Paloski" , title= "Use of a Forth-Based Prolog for Real-Time Expert Systems II. A Full Prolog Interpreter Embedded in Forth" , journal= jfar , volume= 4 , number= 4 , pages= "477--486" , year= 1987 , checked= 19940317 , abstract= "In this article we outline the design of a Prolog interpreter embedded in Forth. The interpreter is the basis of the expert system component of an astronaut interface for a series of Spacelab experiments. The expert system is described in Part I of this article~\cite{Paloski:Odette:Krever:West:1987}. Here we describe out approach to the representational issues in designing the programming machinery needed to interpret Prolog programs: (1) the internal representation of Prolog objects and (2) the representation of the state of a Prolog computation. We also describe the Forth-Prolog interface we use to support the mixed language programming that is necessary to handle the real-time data acquisition and control tasks involved in the application. Our goal is to combine the advantages of Forth for real-time programming and the advantages of Prolog for symbolic reasoning. To take advantage of the large body of Prolog code we have developed for previous applications, we implemented the ``core'' prolog system described in~\cite{Clocksin:Mellish:pp:1981} that is compatible with the widely available implementations." , sjb= "The entire interpreter, including the parser, but excluding stacks takes around 10K of memory. The interpreter runs at 22 LIPS on an Apple Macintosh (which sort?) under MicroMotion MasterForth. This figure is based on running naive reverse. Does not do garbage collection." } From: color@pophost.eunet.be (Bart Lateur) Subject: Re: PLEASE please? Date: Sat, 02 Mar 1996 09:06:31 GMT Message-ID: <4h92ra$llo@news.Belgium.EU.net> References: <4gs5a2$klq@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Reply-To: bart@color.pophost.eunet.be Also sprach rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas): >I saw PLEASE mentioned in a recent post; I've not been keeping up with >the group recently, and my newsserver's backlog of c.l.f had no further >mentions. Can someone please describe this way of managing input? It >sounds interesting. Do you want reposts, or more info? If it's the former, I'd suggest you go search the archives, using DejaNews. I've just looked, and it's all there. go to URL: http://www.dejanews.com/ and go to "filter search". If you can't find it, look at the bottom of the page of "power search". Keys on what to search: "please" is invented by Wil Baden, and implemented in Thisforth. One of the titles where it's been discussed, was "Readable FORTH". Enjoy! {Bart} From: mj@isy.liu.se (Michael Josefsson) Subject: Forth in a PLD? Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 13:11:11 EST Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit As supervisor of undergraduate projects in logic design here at the University of Linkoping, Sweden, I have seen several projects where the students have implemented microprogrammed designs for various goals. Projects such as simple calculators, graphic generators for displaying patterns on oscilloscopes are redaily made in stanadard LS-TTL logic. Also, in our advanced course, groups have made simple 4-bit micrcontrollers for the same purposes using PLDs. The most advanced PLD used in these projects are the ALTERA MAX7128 with a 'usable gate' count of 2500 and a total of 128 macrocells. An idea springs to mind: How about implementing a complete microprocessor in a PLD? The MAX7128 is too s mall I suppose, but there are PLDs with thousands more usable gates. In such a design it would be possible to implement Forth as the native language by microcoding Forth instructions. Since the Harris RTX2000 is hard to get by these days then perhaps a PLD-Forth machine could be a simple alternative? Is it an idea worth considering? Please ventilate your opinions on the matter! Go Forth!/Micke Michael Josefsson, MSEE Research Engineer Universiy of Linkoping Sweden mj@isy.liu.se From: mj@isy.liu.se (Michael Josefsson) Subject: R65F11 Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 13:13:55 EST Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Whatever happened with the Rockwell R65F11 Forth microprocessor? Is it still out there somewhere or is it totally obsolete? I last heard of it over five years ago... Go Forth!/Micke Michael Josefsson mj@isy.liu.se From: lglisle@aol.com (LgLisle) Subject: Re: FINALLY, The Sokoban Contest Winner Date: 6 Mar 1996 08:08:28 -0500 Message-ID: <4hk2oc$70h@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <4hhhbc$609@fnord.dfw.net> In article <4hhhbc$609@fnord.dfw.net>, rick@thunder-ink.com (Rick VanNorman) writes: >And, for what it's worth, I didn't get much feedback at all regarding the >contest entries. Somewhat disappointing..... Hey, don't feel like the Lone Ranger, Rick. I don't think it is just a Forth "thing", but getting feedback is VERY tough. Even when it is theoretically in the non-respondents interest, they don't. I've been trying to maintain a Vendor list for Forth, but only about half of the 70 plus queries I sent garnered responses. As for volunteers, I've seen maybe a hald dozen. And this for FREE advertising! I don't get it. L. Greg Lisle, PE Forth Toolsmith | L.G.Lisle@ieee.org From: japs@netcom.com (Jim Schneider) Subject: Magic Numbers (was: Re: Zero Errors?) Message-ID: References: <4gl97o$abh@cloner2.ix.netcom.com> <4hg86b$4m6@cloner4.netcom.com> Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 00:54:43 GMT In article <4hg86b$4m6@cloner4.netcom.com> JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) writes: >In japs@netcom.com (Jim Schneider) writes: > >>In verec@micronet.fr >>(Jean-Francois Brouillet) writes: > >>>Isn't it funny to see so many people taking so many precautions to comply >>>with ANS Forth standard, and still assume a 16 bit model ? >>-- >>>DECIMAL 1 8 CELLS 1- LSHIFT 1- CONSTANT unlikely >>-- > >>Unfortunately, this assumes that a CHAR sized address unit is 8 bits. I have >>seen a system where it made sense to use a 10 bit char. > >I was going to let this go. Jean-Francois didn't say anything about chars. > >On a 16-bit system, he gets > >1 8 CELLS ( 1 16 ) 1- ( 1 15 ) >LSHIFT ( $8000 ) 1- ( $7FFF ) > >On a 32-bit system, he gets > >1 8 CELLS ( 1 32 ) 1- ( 1 31 ) >LSHIFT ( $80000000 ) 1- ( $7FFFFFFF ) > -- Actually, the 8 in the phrase "1 8 CELLS ..." is an implicit reference to the size of a CHAR in bits. If you have a 20 bit FORTH that uses 10 bit CHARS, the code above would result in: 1 8 CELLS ( 1 16 ) 1- ( 1 15 ) LSHIFT ( $8000 ) 1- ( $7FFF ) which would be correct (if correct is defined as "all bits except for highest order bit set") for a 16 bit machine, but not a 20 bit machine (where the "correct" value is $7FFFF). This might be a better choice to create a "correct value": 0 INVERT 1 RSHIFT If sticking numbers on the stack is expensive (as it was in the above mentioned 20 bit FORTH) you could do this: DUP DUP XOR DUP INVERT SWAP 1+ RSHIFT I can't think of a way to avoid the RSHIFT, however. Notice that 2/ won't work, because the Standard specifically states that 2/ retains the high order bit of its argument, while RSHIFT puts a zero in the vacated high order bit(s). Actually, I think that a bit pattern of mostly ones (or mostly zeros) is a rather poor choice if you want to test it latter to check for uninitialized variables. A bit pattern of alternating ones and zeros (or alternating groups of alternating ones and zeros) would probably be better. For example, the value 55AAh is a legal signed 16 bit quantity that is unlikely to occur in practice, and has the property that the same bit value is repeated in sequence only once (eg. it is equivalent to 0101010110101010b). The major problem is that constants like this must be (1) easily recognizable as initializers and (2) not likely to show up in live data. I can't think of any algorithmic approach to creating these numbers that satisfies both requirements. From: "Paul E. Bennett" Subject: Re: Forth in a PLD? Date: Wed, 06 Mar 96 15:01:45 GMT Message-ID: <826124505snz@tcontec.demon.co.uk> References: Reply-To: peb@transcontech.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: tcontec.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: tcontec.demon.co.uk In article mj@isy.liu.se "Michael Josefsson" writes: > An idea springs to mind: > How about implementing a complete microprocessor in a PLD? The MAX7128 is too > small I suppose, but there are PLDs with thousands more usable gates. In such > a design it would be possible to implement Forth as the native language by > microcoding Forth instructions. Charles Johnsen and myself have discussed, at length in phone conversation, such aspects. This related to embedding a processor in a Gate Array but the idea is similar enough (when does a PLD become a Gate Array?). My reason was because I am looking for a much better processor for Safety Critical Applications. Such a processor will need improvements to hardware error detection and reporting. Lets take the idea a little further. Start with a Forth based description of the logic processes to be performed. Use that software description to generate the required hardware logic description which could then be used to programme a gate array or PLD device with the required structure. Finally, using Forth, test the device for compliance with requirements. Stack Computers can be implemented in surprisingly few gates. The Novix was only 4000. Depending on what you allocate resource-wise a slight trimming may be possible. Charles Johnsen is at MISC Inc. in Colorado, sadly he is not yet directly on e-mail. I shall prompt him that such discussion is taking place. -- Paul E. Bennett peb@transcontech.co.uk Going Forth Safely From: JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) Subject: Re: Magic Numbers (was: Re: Zero Errors?) Date: 6 Mar 1996 19:02:45 GMT Message-ID: <4hkngl$jfb@cloner2.ix.netcom.com> References: <4gl97o$abh@cloner2.ix.netcom.com> <4hg86b$4m6@cloner4.netcom.com> X-NETCOM-Date: Wed Mar 06 11:02:45 AM PST 1996 In japs@netcom.com (Jim Schneider) writes: >In article <4hg86b$4m6@cloner4.netcom.com> JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) writes: >>In japs@netcom.com (Jim Schneider) writes: >>>Unfortunately, this assumes that a CHAR sized address unit is 8 bits. I have >>>seen a system where it made sense to use a 10 bit char. >>I was going to let this go. Jean-Francois didn't say anything about chars. >>On a 16-bit system, he gets >>1 8 CELLS ( 1 16 ) 1- ( 1 15 ) >>LSHIFT ( $8000 ) 1- ( $7FFF ) -- >Actually, the 8 in the phrase "1 8 CELLS ..." is an implicit reference to the >size of a CHAR in bits. If you have a 20 bit FORTH that uses 10 bit CHARS, >the code above would result in: > 1 8 CELLS ( 1 16 ) 1- ( 1 15 ) > LSHIFT ( $8000 ) 1- ( $7FFF ) >which would be correct (if correct is defined as "all bits except for highest >order bit set") for a 16 bit machine, but not a 20 bit machine (where the >"correct" value is $7FFFF). Now I'm getting a better idea what you meant! OK, the 8 in the phrase "1 8 CELLS ..." doesn't refer to the size of a CHAR but to the size of an "address unit". The chars could be some other size, but the addressing was assumed to be in bytes. If your 20 bit Forth uses a 10-bit address unit, then you'd use 10 CELLS while if it uses a 20-bit address unit you'd use 20 CELLS . It doesn't have anything directly to do with characters, which was where I got confused. >This might be a better choice to create a "correct value": >0 INVERT 1 RSHIFT Yes, that looks much better to me. >Actually, I think that a bit pattern of mostly ones (or mostly zeros) >is a rather poor choice if you want to test it latter to check for >uninitialized variables. A bit pattern of alternating ones and zeros >(or alternating groups of alternating ones and zeros) would probably >be better. For example, the value 55AAh is a legal signed 16 bit >quantity that is unlikely to occur in practice, and has the property >that the same bit value is repeated in sequence only once (eg. it is >equivalent to 0101010110101010b). The major problem is that constants >like this must be (1) easily recognizable as initializers and (2) not >likely to show up in live data. I can't think of any algorithmic >approach to creating these numbers that satisfies both requirements. Yes, same here. I've implemented something that handles this, but it's probably too complicated for casual use. From: nnjtm@vx730.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jay T. Miller) Subject: Forth for UT69R000 (UT1750) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 13:51:20 Message-ID: We're using the UT69R000 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and are curious if there are any Forth systems available. We're planning to port Dr. Ting's E-Forth but would prefer a canned solution if one is available. The UT69R000 is a harvard architecture RISC microcontroller so we're also interested in examples or comments pertaining to Forth on harvard arch. machines. Jay T. Miller NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Code 735.3 wk: (301) 286 - 3112 email: nnjtm@vx730.gsfc.nasa.gov From: jt@ (Jay T. Miller) Subject: Re: Forth for UT69R000 (UT1750) Date: 6 Mar 1996 19:05:26 GMT Message-ID: <4hknlm$elt@post.gsfc.nasa.gov> References: Sorry guys; my original post gave an obsolete return e-mail address. E-mail comments should be sent to: jay.t.miller.1@gsfc.nasa.gov or robert.caffrey@gsfc.nasa.gov Thanks, Jay T. Miller NASA Goddard Space Flight Center From: JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) Subject: Re: Magic Numbers (was: Re: Zero Errors?) Date: 6 Mar 1996 19:08:57 GMT Message-ID: <4hkns9$763@reader2.ix.netcom.com> References: <4gl97o$abh@cloner2.ix.netcom.com> <4hg86b$4m6@cloner4.netcom.com> X-NETCOM-Date: Wed Mar 06 11:08:57 AM PST 1996 In japs@netcom.com (Jim Schneider) writes: >In article <4hg86b$4m6@cloner4.netcom.com> JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) writes: >>In japs@netcom.com (Jim Schneider) writes: >>>Unfortunately, this assumes that a CHAR sized address unit is 8 bits. I have >>>seen a system where it made sense to use a 10 bit char. >>I was going to let this go. Jean-Francois didn't say anything about chars. >>On a 16-bit system, he gets >>1 8 CELLS ( 1 16 ) 1- ( 1 15 ) >>LSHIFT ( $8000 ) 1- ( $7FFF ) -- >Actually, the 8 in the phrase "1 8 CELLS ..." is an implicit reference to the >size of a CHAR in bits. If you have a 20 bit FORTH that uses 10 bit CHARS, >the code above would result in: > 1 8 CELLS ( 1 16 ) 1- ( 1 15 ) > LSHIFT ( $8000 ) 1- ( $7FFF ) >which would be correct (if correct is defined as "all bits except for highest >order bit set") for a 16 bit machine, but not a 20 bit machine (where the >"correct" value is $7FFFF). Now I'm getting a better idea what you meant! OK, the 8 in the phrase "1 8 CELLS ..." doesn't refer to the size of a CHAR but to the size of an "address unit". The chars could be some other size, but the addressing was assumed to be in bytes. If your 20 bit Forth uses a 10-bit address unit, then you'd use 10 CELLS while if it uses a 20-bit address unit you'd use 20 CELLS . It doesn't have anything directly to do with characters, which was where I got confused. >This might be a better choice to create a "correct value": >0 INVERT 1 RSHIFT Yes, that looks much better to me. >Actually, I think that a bit pattern of mostly ones (or mostly zeros) >is a rather poor choice if you want to test it latter to check for >uninitialized variables. A bit pattern of alternating ones and zeros >(or alternating groups of alternating ones and zeros) would probably >be better. For example, the value 55AAh is a legal signed 16 bit >quantity that is unlikely to occur in practice, and has the property >that the same bit value is repeated in sequence only once (eg. it is >equivalent to 0101010110101010b). The major problem is that constants >like this must be (1) easily recognizable as initializers and (2) not >likely to show up in live data. I can't think of any algorithmic >approach to creating these numbers that satisfies both requirements. Yes, same here. I've implemented something that handles this, but it's probably too complicated for casual use. For every sequence of valid addresses, I set up a 2nd sequence that holds system data about those addresses. Easy to mark the system data when the address is initialized, or check the system data when the address is fetched -- at a large run-time cost, of course. From: JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) Subject: Re: Immediacy in the ANSI standard Date: 6 Mar 1996 19:14:18 GMT Message-ID: <4hko6a$36h@dfw-ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> References: <4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <4hfcnj$69n@chile.it.earthlink.net> <4hh46c$sn@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> X-NETCOM-Date: Wed Mar 06 1:14:18 PM CST 1996 In <4hh46c$sn@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) writes: >>(1) In most implementations, a word must be immediate in order to be able to >>decide whether to execute the compilation or interpretation semantics. >This I understand, but many words in the Standard which would be >immediate in such compilers have their immediacy unspecified; I wonder >why the others do need it specified. There are words in the standard that have no interpretation semantics. They don't necessarily do the same thing interpreting that they do compiling, which is what would happen if they were immediate. The standard doesn't say anything about what happens if you try to interpret them -- you might get an error, or a crash, or you might get some sort of interpreted behavior, it all depends on the implementation. The standard gives no way that a _user_ can make words like that. Anything you make will have the default compile-time behavior unless you make it immediate, and then it will execute at compile-time. So _your_ words must be immediate or else they're not immediate. In my opinion the standard is far too wishy-washy about words like IF and >R . You can't depend on getting the xt with ' since they might be in some hidden wordlist or something, and they might not be available when interpreting. You can't depend on getting the xt with ['] because ['] is supposed to give the same thing that ' does. I thought that FIND should give the xt of IF provided you're compiling when you FIND it, but apparently this isn't required either. Maybe it would be possible to make an implementation where IF doesn't have an xt at all. It could get built into the interpreter or something. You can POSTPONE it but you can't FIND it. No way to do COMPILE, and maybe even [COMPILE] wouldn't work. I figure if I _need_ an xt for IF then I've got an environmental dependency on FIND finding it. And if I need FIND to return a 1 instead of a -1 then that's an environmental dependency. I can hope that my program will still be very portable. From: JEThomas@ix.netcom.com (Jonah Thomas) Subject: Re: Immediacy in the ANSI standard Date: 6 Mar 1996 19:13:17 GMT Message-ID: <4hko4d$7a1@reader2.ix.netcom.com> References: <4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <4hfcnj$69n@chile.it.earthlink.net> <4hh46c$sn@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> X-NETCOM-Date: Wed Mar 06 11:13:17 AM PST 1996 In <4hh46c$sn@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) writes: >>(1) In most implementations, a word must be immediate in order to be able to >>decide whether to execute the compilation or interpretation semantics. >This I understand, but many words in the Standard which would be >immediate in such compilers have their immediacy unspecified; I wonder >why the others do need it specified. There are words in the standard that have no interpretation semantics. They don't necessarily do the same thing interpreting that they do compiling, which is what would happen if they were immediate. The standard doesn't say anything about what happens if you try to interpret them -- you might get an error, or a crash, or you might get some sort of interpreted behavior, it all depends on the implementation. The standard gives no way that a _user_ can make words like that. Anything you make will have the default compile-time behavior unless you make it immediate, and then it will execute at compile-time. So _your_ words must be immediate or else they're not immediate. In my opinion the standard is far too wishy-washy about words like IF and >R . You can't depend on getting the xt with ' since they might be in some hidden wordlist or something, and they might not be available when interpreting. You can't depend on getting the xt with ['] because ['] is supposed to give the same thing that ' does. I thought that FIND should give the xt of IF provided you're compiling when you FIND it, but apparently this isn't required either. Maybe it would be possible to make an implementation where IF doesn't have an xt at all. It could get built into the interpreter or something. You can POSTPONE it but you can't FIND it. No way to do COMPILE, and maybe even [COMPILE] wouldn't work. I figure if I _need_ an xt for IF then I've got an environmental dependency on FIND finding it. And if I need FIND to return a 1 instead of a -1 then that's an environmental dependency. I can hope that my program will still be very portable. From: jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Julian V. Noble) Subject: Re: The nature of Forth Programmers X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fermi.clas.virginia.edu Message-ID: References: <825715393snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 19:47:07 GMT Stephen Pelc writes: > In article > jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU "Julian V. Noble" writes: > > Liz Rather notes that travel costs could be significant in a big project. > > I don't see how this could be so if the meetings are no more frequent > > than biweekly. > We have projects covering five countries in the case of SENDIT. Hotel bills > in some European countries are high, and taxi costs in Belgium ... > Now expand the cost when the partners are 6000 miles apart ... This is a different kettle of fish. I was referring to home-grown All-American Forth programmers working for a domestic client. After all, I wouldn't wish to offend Pat Buchanan ;-) International remote programming is a much more complex matter. > As a comment to remote working, many customers do not want to consider > this until they have established a relationship of trust with the > contractor. And there is no substitute for face to face meetings. That is for sure. As someone who has licensed software and been stiffed by people who knew it was not worth my while to sue them inter-state, I well appreciate that the element of trust is crucial. However, total trust is not necessary--the client puts up a performance bond, with "performance according to spec" being judged by a third party. This is quite standard international contracting practice. > -- > Stephen Pelc, sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk > MicroProcessor Engineering - More Real, Less Time > 133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England > tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691 -- Julian V. Noble jvn@virginia.edu From: jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Julian V. Noble) Subject: Re: Help with Forth X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fermi.clas.virginia.edu Message-ID: References: Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 19:56:45 GMT jcomeau@world.std.com writes: > Alaric B. Williams (alaric@abwillms.demon.co.uk) wrote: > : wil@informate.be (Jean Williams) wrote: > > : >If so we are offering approximately 55000 pounds sterling > : >($780000) per year NET!! > > : Inflation gets worse and worse. > > Is it really 14 pounds to the dollar now? Or is there maybe an > order-of-magnitude error in there? - John It's 14 pounds to the _stone_ ;) -- Julian V. Noble jvn@virginia.edu From: jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Julian V. Noble) Subject: Re: Forth and AI X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fermi.clas.virginia.edu Message-ID: References: Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 20:07:30 GMT h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk writes: > Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. > I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. > Any pointers or references are welcome! > > Andras As part of our chapter on "Little Languages" Brad Rodriguez wrote a little logic programming application. Phil Koopman wrote TIGRE which is a graph reduction algorithm based on Forth--used self-modifying code, I think, but ran like a bomb. (Graph reduction can be used to simplify logic trees...) For pattern recognition nothing beats finite state machines, definite or indefinite. I refer you to my article on same, supposedly to be published in JFAR, assuming there ever _is_ a JFAR again... The technique described there (a compiler for state transition tables) is used in several commercial apps. You can get fsm.zip from ftp.cygnus.com /pub/forth as well as, AFIK, from taygeta on www. The .zip file is directly printable on a HP LJ II or better laser printer. Just unzip and follow instructions. -- Julian V. Noble jvn@virginia.edu Subject: Re: Tcl/Tk Message-ID: <313DED49.11B3@paisley.ac.uk> From: Peter Knaggs Date: Wed, 06 Mar 1996 19:53:45 +0000 References: <4h9dsc$qtv@iaehv.IAEhv.nl> X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marcel Hendrix wrote: > > And I asked: > > > **Who's done the port of Tcl/Tk to Windows?! Is it commercial?** > > ... and didn't get an answer on that. Sorry, I did't see the original question, just the reply. > The package in question is called twine. I found it at ftp.tuwien.ac.at > in pub/languages/tcl/distrib (twinebin.README twinebin.zip twinesrc.README > and twinesrc.zip). Well we are using the PC port of Tk 4.1 and Tcl 7.5 (both windows .dll files) by Scott Stanton and John Ousterhout and the team at Sun who have taken over the project. Ousterhout is doing a complete, and he clames final, reworking. Check out the projects home page: http://www.sunlabs.com:80/research/tcl/ -- Peter J Knaggs pjk@paisley.ac.uk http://www.paisley.ac.uk/~cis/staff/pjk.html http://www.paisley.ac.uk/~cis/forth/index.html From: haldane@quiz.iglou.com (Bob Slaughter) Subject: Hobbyist looking for SW/FW Forth for IBM X-Nntp-Posting-Host: quiz Message-ID: Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 21:03:43 GMT I'm a former FORTH hobbyist looking for a simple version of FORTH that will run adequately on my 486/33 PC unde4r either DOS or Win3.1. I don't need a major commercial package. The ones I've found had next to no documentation as to the version of FORTH they were, or usage of the extensions they included. I'm still using 2nd edition Brodie "Starting FORTH" as my reference. I'd like one that handles files rather than blocks, of course, but other than that my needs are simple. I always found FORTH to be the best language for me for both simple quickie programs and longer code for personal usage. Thanks in advance. -- Bob Slaughter Model railroad enthusiast haldane@iglou.com lojban language learner Technical Support Services Iglou Internet Services 1-800-I-DO-IGLOU see http://www.iglou.com/haldane (1-800-436-4456) Subject: Re: TRUE 1 AND yields? Message-ID: <313DF170.725E@paisley.ac.uk> From: Peter Knaggs Date: Wed, 06 Mar 1996 20:11:28 +0000 References: <4ai4ob$kpu@useneta1.news.prodigy.com> <3111EDD9.6C4B@paisley.ac.uk> <4ga99q$j2g@news.tuwien.ac.at> <312B8EB8.17A2@paisley.ac.uk> <4gml9s$827@gaia.ns.utk.edu> <3132E3AC.450B@paisley.ac.uk> <3133A381.79B12735@informatik.tu-muenchen.de> X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bernd Paysan wrote: > > Could this be a hint that ANS FORTH was ment to be an untyped language? > Thus all is 'x', but you can talk about subsets of 'x', like 'u', 'n' or 'flag'. You have obviously not looked at the work I am refering to, as you you would see that that is exactly what I do. > This will certainly not be FORTH as it was, because your type checker may forbit > some things we do on our daily work, e.g. using - instead of IF 1+ THEN. > This promotions are useless when it comes to check code, because you can't check > FORTH code on type based assumptions, not because the promotions itself are crap. I could not disagree with you more. The WHOLE POINT of the work is that IT DOES fit in with the every day usage. May I suggest you actuarly obatin one or two of the papers describing the algebra and then we could have a proper debate. @Article{Stoddart:Knaggs:fac:1993, author = "Bill Stoddart and Peter J. Knaggs", title = "Type Inference in Stack Based Languages", journal = "Formal Aspects of Computing", year = "1993", volume = "5", number = "4", pages = "289--298", checked = "19940317", keywords = "type inference, type checking, Forth, stack based language", abstract = "We consider a language of operations which pass parameters by means of a stack. An algebra over the set of type signatures is introduced, which allows the type signature of a program to be obtained from the type signatures of its constituent operations. Although the theories apply in principle to any stack based language, they have been evolved with particular regard to the proposed ANSI Standard Forth language, which is currently implemented in a type free manner. We hope this work will stimulate an interest in Forth amongst those applying algebraic techniques in software engineering, and we hope to lay the theoretical foundations for implementing practical type checkers to support Forth." } -- Peter J Knaggs pjk@paisley.ac.uk http://www.paisley.ac.uk/~cis/staff/pjk.html http://www.paisley.ac.uk/~cis/forth/index.html From: elvey@hal.COM (Dwight Elvey) Subject: Re: forth engines? Date: 6 Mar 1996 22:22:01 GMT Message-ID: <4hl369$su8@news.hal.com> References: <4h9tnq$nso@wave.rio.com> In article <4h9tnq$nso@wave.rio.com>, rick@rio.rio.com (Robert R. Beaver) writes: |> |> :Are there any forth engines still on the the market? |> :I would like to play around with verious type. And |> :maybe use them for embedded systems. |> |> rick@rio.com |> Hi Rick As far as I know the RTX2000 is still available from Harris. Silicon Composers is still selling the SC32? that is a 32 bit Forth engine. There are a couple of East European NC4000 look-a-likes but I'm not sure how one would go about getting them. I believe someone in England or Germany has a Forth engine of some kind. Last but not least is the chips sold by C Moore and Jeff Fox. I don't consider these as true Forth engines but a form of stack processor that can make a fair Forth. Because of their high instruction throughput these can be effectively used even though a standard Forth is a little inefficient. Dwight From: jack@purr.demon.co.uk (Jack Campin) Subject: Re: Forth and AI Date: 7 Mar 1996 00:19:14 GMT Message-ID: <857@purr.demon.co.uk> References: X-NNTP-Posting-Host: purr.demon.co.uk jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Julian V. Noble) writes: > Phil Koopman wrote TIGRE which is a graph reduction algorithm based on > Forth--used self-modifying code, I think, but ran like a bomb. (Graph > reduction can be used to simplify logic trees...) Or implement lazy functional languages (though the functional crowd typically use a mixture of techniques nowadays to get better speed). Is this TIGRE thing in the public domain? If so, where can you find it? What memory management stuff does it require? Sounds interesting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Campin jack@purr.demon.co.uk jack@tardis.ed.ac.uk T/L, 2 Haddington Place, Edinburgh EH7 4AE, Scotland (+44) 131 556 5272 -------------------- FERMAN PADiSAHIN, DAGLAR BiZiMDiR -------------------- From: forthist@imap2.asu.edu Subject: Re: Hobbyist looking for SW/FW Forth for IBM Date: 7 Mar 1996 02:11:08 GMT Message-ID: <4hlgjs$2lk@news.asu.edu> References: Bob Slaughter (haldane@quiz.iglou.com) wrote: : I'm a former FORTH hobbyist looking for a simple version of FORTH that : will run adequately on my 486/33 PC unde4r either DOS or Win3.1. I don't : need a major commercial package. The ones I've found had next to no : documentation as to the version of FORTH they were, or usage of the : extensions they included. I'm still using 2nd edition Brodie "Starting : FORTH" as my reference. I'd like one that handles files rather than : blocks, of course, but other than that my needs are simple. : I always found FORTH to be the best language for me for both simple : quickie programs and longer code for personal usage. : Thanks in advance. : -- : Bob Slaughter Model railroad enthusiast : haldane@iglou.com lojban language learner : Technical Support Services Iglou Internet Services 1-800-I-DO-IGLOU : see http://www.iglou.com/haldane (1-800-436-4456) Check out FPC-3.60 at http://www.forth.org/forth.html It follows the 83 standard, uses files, and comes with a ton of stuff including a huge help system. You might also be interested in the Dec-95 and Jan-96 issues of Forth Dimensions, which contain articles on using F-PC to control stuff via a simple connection to the printer port. Controlling a train setup would be quite feasible with F-PC, and loads of fun. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Brad Eckert Mesa, AZ forthist@imap2.asu.edu "I brake for Forth programmers" ------------------------------------------------------------------ From: jfox@netcom.com (Jeff Fox) Subject: Re: Forth and AI Message-ID: References: Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 04:29:27 GMT In article h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) writes: > Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. >I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. >Any pointers or references are welcome! > >Andras Ahh.. Forth and AI is one of my favorite subjects. :-) There was a great article in AI Expert October 87 "The Forth Wave in AI." by R Trelease. In that article various expert systems are compared. Several articles on expert systems and neural nets have been published in past issues of FD and FORML proceedings. Check out the books and diskettes available from FIG. Check out Brad Rodriquez's TEXMEX (Threaded EXecution Micro EXpert) for some interesting and very efficient solutions. You might also look into Dr. Julian Noble's finite state machine compilers. Dr. Tim Hendtlass's paper "Embedded Node Collectives" in the 91 FORML Conference Proceedings describes an application where distributed nodes run neural net software to learn and recognize long term patterns. John Carpenter has done a couple of presentations at SVFIG chapter meetings on trainable neural nets. Dr. Ting did a presentation for SVSIG on the NN board and software he had done in Taiwan a couple of years ago. He made a board that used 32 op amps and a large prototype area that was programmed with resistors (to set the weight factors) to provide 32 NN with up to 32 inputs each on a pcb. It is one of the Offete products. Authur Murry's mind.rexx has been undergoing a port to mind.forth for some time. It is a very interresting AI application. I am interested to see what it will think on a better platform. :-) I am planning to organize an AI in Forth program for one of the SVFIG meetings this year. I will be trying to work up some stuff with some of the people mentioned above and a few more. I intend to demonstate various AI programs on F21 when a little more testing has been done. F21 is optimized for expert system type applications and I intend to demonstrate trainable nn modules within an expert system environment. Some of the other topics that may be included in the SVFIG AI day might be: subsumption architecture in a Forth robot nn for voice and speaker recognition nn for image processing expert system design for natural language processing laws of form logic distilation engine a scalable environment for multiple agents Jeff Fox Ultra Technology 2510 10th St. Berkeley CA 94710 (510) 848-2149 http://www.dnai.com/~jfox From: alaric@abwillms.demon.co.uk (Alaric B. Williams) Subject: Anyone interested in writing an operating system? Date: Thu, 07 Mar 1996 06:47:06 GMT Message-ID: <826181227.26001@abwillms.demon.co.uk> X-NNTP-Posting-Host: abwillms.demon.co.uk Anyone here ever been hit by the urge to write an operating system from scratch? Well, there are fellow sufferers. I would like to form a not-for-profit net group to write a nice tasty OS for PC compatibles at first. Later, we can port it galore. An IP protocol stack will probably be a key part of it. A FORTH-like language will be used internally by the compiler, which must also be designed (that'll be realatively easy; I've designed a nice way of doing that). Curious? Visit http://www.hardcafe.co.uk/Alaric/os.htm Constructive critics, people who want to learn, and artists/designers/lunatics/etc will be welcome as well as programmers. And I'm going to need somebody who can run a nicer listserv than I can from my intermittent link. Being a jack of all trades but master of none, I hope to bind together specialists in diverse fields to make an overally very nice operating system that will be a joy to use and code for. Anyone who joins the effort will not be under any nasty resposnibility etc; if you decide you'd rather go and breed cats, that's fine, as long as you don't leave us in the lurch by not submitting what you were working on! Looking forward.... ABW -- I have become... Comfortably numb... Alaric B. Williams Internet : alaric@abwillms.demon.co.uk http://www.hardcafe.co.uk/Alaric/ From: Chris Jakeman Subject: Re: Immediacy in the ANSI standard Date: Sun, 03 Mar 96 07:57:08 GMT Message-ID: <825839828snz@apvpeter.demon.co.uk> References: <4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> Reply-To: cjakeman@apvpeter.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: apvpeter.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: apvpeter.demon.co.uk In article <4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk "Reuben Thomas" writes: > What's going on here? > > Many apologies if these points are fixed up in the final standard, but I > can't afford one, my department has refused to buy one, and I haven't yet > got round to printing a copy of the Word file (which I have, but I don't > have Word). STOP PRESS: Am getting this together, though thwarted by > various technologies. I met this problem too. Try ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Literature/dpans94.asc for a plain ASCII version of the standard. Bye for now _ _______________________| |_____ Chris Jakeman / _Forth_Interest_Group_| |____/ / /_ __ ______ _ _ | | __ at Peterborough / __/ / / / __ / | | | | | |/ / (a cathedral city / / / / / /_/ / | \_| | | < 80 miles north of London) /_/ /_/ /___ / \____| |_|\_\ Where do you come from? / / ______________/ / United Kingdom Voice +44 (0)1733 346477 /_______________/ Chapter From: 100275.413@compuserve.com (Cyril Elkaim) Subject: Re: Forth and AI Date: Thu, 07 Mar 1996 08:55:59 GMT Message-ID: <4hm8bi$fid@dub-news-svc-2.compuserve.com> References: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) wrote: > Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. >I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. >Any pointers or references are welcome! >Andras There is a book: 'Intelligent Embedded Systems' by Louis L. Odette ISBN 0-201-51753-1 That's talking about Forth, Lisp and Prolog for these kinds of work. Cyril From: stephenb@harlequin.co.uk (Stephen Bevan) Subject: Re: Forth and AI Date: 07 Mar 1996 09:23:42 GMT Message-ID: References: <857@purr.demon.co.uk> In-reply-to: jack@purr.demon.co.uk's message of 7 Mar 1996 00:19:14 GMT In article <857@purr.demon.co.uk> jack@purr.demon.co.uk (Jack Campin) writes: Is this TIGRE thing in the public domain? If so, where can you find it? What memory management stuff does it require? Sounds interesting. Pretty much all you need to know to implement it yourself is contained in :- @inproceedings { Koopman:Lee:acm:pldi:1989 , author= "Koopman, Jr., Philip J. and Peter Lee" , email= "petel+@cs.cmu.edu" , title= "A Fresh Look at Combinator Graph Reduction (Or, Having a TIGRE by the Tail)" , crossref= "acm:pldi:1989" , pages= "110--119" , keywords= "combinator graph reduction" , refs= 19 , checked= 19951212 , source= "Computer Science Library, University of Manchester" , abstract= "We present a new abstract machine for graph reduction called TIGRE. Benchmark results show that TIGRE's execution speed compares quite favourably with previous combinator-graph reduction techniques on similar hardware. Futhermore, the mapping of TIGRE onto conventional hardware is simiple and efficient. Mainframe implementations of TIGRE provide performance levels exceeding those previously available on custom graph reduction hardware." , sjb= "The first implementation of TIGRE was done in Forth, subsequently C and VAX assembly versions were created. The following performance figures are given using a simple stop-and-copy collector~\cite{Baker:cacm:apr:1978}. No measurement of GC effects is given other than to note that the heap space was small enough to force several dozen garbage collection cycles. \begin{verbatim} Platform Language Program Time (sec) Speed (RAPS) VAX8800 assembler skifib(23) 2.82 387000 fib(23) 2.10 355000 nfib(23) 3.55 366000 tak 16.07 329000 C skifib(23) 6.50 168000 fib(23) 5.01 149000 nfib(23) 9.13 142000 microVAX assembler skifib(23) 6.33 172000 fib(23) 4.80 155000 nfib(23) 8.23 158000 C skifib(23) 13.12 83000 fib(23) 10.75 69000 nfib(23) 19.16 68000 SUN 3/360 C skifib(23) 8.62 126000 24 MHz fib(23) 7.01 105000 nfib(23) 12.37 105000 SUN 3/75 C skifib(23) 14.62 75000 16 MHz fib(23) 12.75 58000 nfib(23) 22.02 59000 \end{verbatim} The following is given as the source for each of the programs~:- SKIFIB \begin{example} fib n = 1 ; n < 3 = fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) ((s ((s ((s (k if)) ((s <) (k 3)))) (k 1))) ((s ((s (k +)) ((s (k cycle)) ((s -) (k 1))))) ((s (k cycle)) ((s -) (k 2))))) \end{example} FIB \begin{example} fib n = 1 ; n < 3 = fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) ((s (((s' if) ((c <) 3)) (k 1))) (((s' +) ((b cycle) ((c -) 1))) ((b cycle) ((c -) 2)))) \end{example} Notice :- \begin{itemize} \item that there is no difference between the source for SKIFIB and FIB, but that there is for the resulting SKI code. \item no mention of ``cycle'' is made in the paper. Presumably ``cycle'' is equivalent to ``recurse'' in Forth. \end{itemize} \begin{example} nfib n = 1 ; n < 2 = 1 + fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) \end{example} TAK \begin{example} tak x y z = z ; not (y < x) = tak (tak(x-1) y z) (tak (y-1) z x) (tak (z-1) x y) \end{example} \begin{verbatim} Platform Language Program Time (sec) Speed (RAPS) SUN 3/75 TIGRE C fib(23) 12.75 58000 16 MHz nfib(20) 5.22 59000 Miranda fib(23) 86.55 7300 nfib(20) 22.17 7300 \end{verbatim} " , reffrom= Koopman:Lee:Siewiorek:acm:toplas:1992 } The following, as its title suggests, gives an indepth analysis of the effect on the cache of the TIGRE method of (combinator) graph reduction :- @article { Koopman:Lee:Siewiorek:acm:toplas:1992 , author= "Koopman, Jr., Philip J. and Peter Lee and Daniel P. Siewiorek" , title= "Cache Behavior of Combinator Graph Reduction" , journal= acm:toplas , volume= 14 , number= 2 , pages= "265--297" , month= apr , year= 1992 , refs= 39 , checked= 19940317 , keywords= "combinator graph reduction, cache" , abstract= "The results of cache-simulation experiments with an abstract machine for reducing combinator graphs are presented. The abstract machine, called TIGRE, exhibits reduction rates that, for similar kinds of combinator graphs on similar kinds of hardware, compare favourable with previously reported techniques. Furthermore, TIGRE maps easily and efficiently onto standard computer architectures, particularly those that allow a restricted form of self-modifying code. This provides some indication that conventional ``stored program'' organization of computer systems is not necessarily an inappropriate one for functional programming language implementations. This is not to say, however, that present day computer systems are well equipped to reduce combinator graphs. In particular, the behavior of the cache memory has significant effect on performance. In order to study an quantify this effect, trace-driven cache simulations of a TIGRE graph reducer running on a reduced instruction-set computer are conducted. The results of these simulations are presented with the following hardware-cache parameters varied: the change size, block size, associativity, memory update policy, and write-allocation policy. To begin with, the cache organization of a commercially available system is used and then the performance sensitivity with respect to variations of each parameter are measured. From the results of the simulation study, a conclusion is made that combinator-graph reduction using TIGRE runs most efficiently when using a cache memory with an allocate-on-write-miss strategy, moderately larger block size (preferably with subblock placement), and copy-back memory updates." } From: lglisle@aol.com (LgLisle) Subject: Re: Hobbyist looking for SW/FW Forth for IBM Date: 7 Mar 1996 08:18:28 -0500 Message-ID: <4hmnn4$5p5@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <4hlgjs$2lk@news.asu.edu> In article , haldane@quiz.iglou.com (Bob Slaughter) writes: >I'm a former FORTH hobbyist looking for a simple version of FORTH that >will run adequately on my 486/33 PC unde4r either DOS or Win3.1. If you're looking for _simple_, try Pygmy. It doesn't match any standard, although it's close, but it is very clean and easy to use. Especially if you are already familiar with Forth. My Pygtools package include a set of screens to bring Pygmy closer to F83 and I'm looking at tools to bring Pygmy closer to ANSI too. Check: ftp: taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Pygmy/pygmy14.exe taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Pygmy/pygtools.zip L. Greg Lisle, PE Forth Toolsmith | L.G.Lisle@ieee.org From: znmeb@teleport.com () Subject: Re: Hobbyist looking for SW/FW Forth for IBM Date: 7 Mar 1996 16:43:03 GMT Message-ID: <4hn3mn$cai@nadine.teleport.com> References: Bob Slaughter (haldane@quiz.iglou.com) wrote: : I'm a former FORTH hobbyist looking for a simple version of FORTH that : will run adequately on my 486/33 PC unde4r either DOS or Win3.1. I don't : need a major commercial package. The ones I've found had next to no : documentation as to the version of FORTH they were, or usage of the : extensions they included. I'm still using 2nd edition Brodie "Starting : FORTH" as my reference. I'd like one that handles files rather than : blocks, of course, but other than that my needs are simple. : I always found FORTH to be the best language for me for both simple : quickie programs and longer code for personal usage. : Thanks in advance. I think you'll like F-PC. Although it is a 16-bit F83 Forth, it is very comprehensive and will run well in much smaller environments if necessary. It is available from FIG and on the Web. Tom Zimmer and his colleagues have frozen F-PC at the 3.6 level and moved on to the Windows environment; I'm sure their product is every bit as good as F-PC. -- znmeb@teleport.com (M. Edward Borasky) http://www.teleport.com/~znmeb The American people are tired of being told what the American people are tired of. From: Andrew McKewan Subject: Re: 32-bit Forth for Win 95? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Message-ID: <313EFA9A.3B@netcom.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <4hibv2$gkj@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 15:02:50 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (WinNT; I) John Dunn wrote: > We are in need of a solid commercial Forth for Windows 95. > The only one I have seen is ProForth, from a > company in the UK, and distributed in the US by Forth, Inc. > > Two questions: Has anyone used this package, and can comment > on it? I used ProForth about 2 years ago and it was a very well-done and well-documented system. It had some bugs that I'm sure have been fixed by now. Also, they have added a graphical user-interface designer called GUIDE. I have seed a demo but I have not actually used it. For Windows 95 (or NT), I think it's the only game in town. > Are there any other commercial (or well documented, > robust and fast non-commercial) 32 bit Forths for Windows 95? At one time I had heard that LMI was working on a 32-bit version of WinForth, but I don't know if that was ever finished. http://www.cerfnet.com/~lmi/ There is a public-domain system called Win32Forth that is available from ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Win32For/ It is robust (used for a real application) and reasonably fast, but is poorly documented (if at all). There is a lot of work required to be able to use it. Andrew From: hbezemer@vsngroep.nl (Hans Bezemer) Subject: Re: Hobbyist looking for SW/FW Forth for IBM - 4th.arj (0/3) X-Nntp-Posting-Host: ldn98-17.leiden.nl.net Message-ID: References: Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 21:05:52 GMT haldane@quiz.iglou.com (Bob Slaughter) wrote: >I'm a former FORTH hobbyist looking for a simple version of FORTH that >will run adequately on my 486/33 PC unde4r either DOS or Win3.1. I don't >need a major commercial package. The ones I've found had next to no >documentation as to the version of FORTH they were, or usage of the >extensions they included. I'm still using 2nd edition Brodie "Starting >FORTH" as my reference. I'd like one that handles files rather than >blocks, of course, but other than that my needs are simple. >I always found FORTH to be the best language for me for both simple >quickie programs and longer code for personal usage. >Thanks in advance. >-- >Bob Slaughter Model railroad enthusiast >haldane@iglou.com lojban language learner >Technical Support Services Iglou Internet Services 1-800-I-DO-IGLOU >see http://www.iglou.com/haldane (1-800-436-4456) Well, here's mine. I've just finished it a few days ago, so the documentation isn't up to date yet, but it's small, very good to use with Leo Brodies book (I used that as a guideline) it handles files very well and you can use the compilants under both DOS and Windows. Unix versions available too. Hans Bezemer From: hbezemer@vsngroep.nl (Hans Bezemer) Subject: Re: Hobbyist looking for SW/FW Forth for IBM - 4th.arj (3/3) X-Nntp-Posting-Host: ldn98-17.leiden.nl.net Message-ID: References: Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 21:05:55 GMT M_4\L=TU-EL*UT%X=J4/PVUWH5KANC$5440V:.>.F[4E`G;F/$]WTVSV<&QR[ M9G8D309O\X.!;X4TM_+YVTM?KV:82ETKE8#/WUT]>W9`)BOF34,--&IUL5RP MW,=/29N\`A,"AMNK-98<:7^;A_[93!$@\*WA78=TCOH"]X[X M3?*^QR9G2.L]"\_230ND,36D*+/#^A!VI1X"P>1'J*U>EU" M`7P$%+.F%498AKLUI#1NB-.4\7L8O9,LYF#H%\K))T+!(XH:,>?(#P0Z45_, M+1H.P7OHR/<,_L@E,K]1)[R_=\0.S#.AH2^:R2<\*L@@CTF&L>P5H4&:Z']H M8AKC$;1H;'/CI!.A_5/8==1Q?Z(E8\A/YMB\,GK>#P2S(/`D523+5E*@V_.0 M'K7MP+&#"7N=2MXY]O\0URE;]OT!F$;QTP;RR?-_S MNAB]^H,5QAWCA2+*8]J%#9=HI^_SXK6]E? 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I am answering to point out that not too long ago Rockwell had a 65C02 variant with added instructions for threaded code. It was something like 12 MHZ and had hardware that basically could do NEXT and LIT and COLON, etc. This gave serious performance for an 8 bitter. Charlie Springer From: jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Julian V. Noble) Subject: Re: Forth and AI X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fermi.clas.virginia.edu Message-ID: References: Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 20:55:17 GMT jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU writes: > h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk writes: > > Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. > > I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. > > Any pointers or references are welcome! > > > > Andras > [ deleted ] > For pattern recognition nothing beats finite state machines, > definite or indefinite. I refer you to my article on same, supposedly > to be published in JFAR, assuming there ever _is_ a JFAR again... > The technique described there (a compiler for state transition > tables) is used in several commercial apps. > > You can get fsm.zip from ftp.cygnus.com /pub/forth as well as, AFIK, ^ the correct name is fsm_pap.zip --sorry :-( > from taygeta on www. The .zip file is directly printable on a HP LJ II > or better laser printer. Just unzip and follow instructions. -- Julian V. Noble jvn@virginia.edu From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: Rochester '96 sponsors Date: 7 Mar 1996 23:59:30 GMT Message-ID: <4hnt92$e9@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: <4hnegt$ap7@steel.interlog.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) To: board@forth.org X-URL: news:4hnegt$ap7@steel.interlog.com Anyone interested in attending should know that there's a big sale on airline tickets between now and Mar. 15. I just got a ticket from LA to Toronto for the conf. for $275 round trip! Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: Forth for UT69R000 (UT1750) Date: 8 Mar 1996 00:02:55 GMT Message-ID: <4hntff$e9@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) To: sagarwal@forth.com X-URL: news:nnjtm.13.000DDB75@vx730.gsfc.nasa.gov nnjtm@vx730.gsfc.nasa.gov (Jay T. Miller) wrote: >We're using the UT69R000 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and are curious >if there are any Forth systems available. We're planning to port Dr. Ting's >E-Forth but would prefer a canned solution if one is available. > >The UT69R000 is a harvard architecture RISC microcontroller so we're also >interested in examples or comments pertaining to Forth on harvard arch. >machines. We've put our chipFORTH cross-development systems on a number of Harvard architecture chips, ranging from the lowly 8051 to DSPs such as the TI TMS series. If you want a professional, maintained system that will be compatible with the chipFORTHs already in use at Goddard, give us a call. >Jay T. Miller >NASA Goddard Space Flight Center >Code 735.3 >wk: (301) 286 - 3112 >email: nnjtm@vx730.gsfc.nasa.gov Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ From: wtanksle@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (William Tanksley) Subject: Re: Readable-Forth Rules Date: Thu, 07 Mar 1996 04:05:30 -0500 Message-ID: <4hod01$49b@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> References: <4evfv1$27k@cloner3.netcom.com> <4fdkrn$k04@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <4g6idt$aie@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> wilbaden@netcom.com (W.Baden) wrote to us all: >William Tanksley (wtanksle@sdcc15.ucsd.edu) wrote: >> I am reminded of some compression code written in Forth-- was that you who >> wrote it?-- which looked like Pascal. It was set up in HUGE functions. I >> might have understood it if I already understood the algorithm, but not >> otherwise. To all appearances, the author had just made a direct >> translation without any real understanding. No offence, I hope. I'm told >> you don't offend easily, though. >It troubles me that apparently you did not read the associated >documentation. Or it was not as clear as I thought it was. > The profane pseudocode given for LZ77 compression can be > Forthed as: [...] >From this brief description the process can be programmed. That is >what I did in 1992. Oh! I now understand. You see, when you said: > Given here is a Standard Forth version of that program. It shows > its genealogy by the unusually long Forth definitions. I believe > that politically correct factoring would not help understanding > and would degrade performance. I assumed that you were making a general statement about factoring, rather than a specific statement about this purpose. I think what really threw me was your use of the word "politically correct". See, where I come from, people only say that about something that's encouraged but isn't useful. I'm heartened by this-- I like your Forth style, and I've long been puzzled by the apperent contradiction between your nice Forth and your deprecation of factoring. Sorry, even back then I took my Forth Rules too seriously. Rule #8! -Billy From: mlosh@tir.com Subject: Emb. Syst. Programming rediscovers Forth? Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 00:13:37 -0500 Message-ID: <313FC200.64CA@tir.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) As I read Daniel Pettyjohn's article "Programming for Change: How to Handle the Software Crisis" in the March 1996 issue of _Embedded Systems Programming_, I was struck by how much the author's techniques duplicated (in C) functionality commonly found in Forth. To promote generality in software, he suggests accessing a program's functions through the following structure: struct cmd_struc { stryct cmd_stryc *flink; char *cmd_name; char *cmd_desc; int (*val_func) ( ); int (*cmd_func) ( ); }; Does anyone else think that this looks like a Forth dictionary entry? Mr. Pettyjohn then gives some C code to fetch commands from an input queue, find them in the linked structure, and execute them. If he added a way to thread multiple commands together, he'd REALLY be close to Forth! The "val_func" is intersting; it points to a validation function, to check to see if the command's inputs are valid. Forth does not have a formal mechanism for validating input for general functions, but of course Forth programmers will tell you that any necessary input validation can be added simply. Anyway, the author seems to be solving the problems of flexibility in embedded systems development by adding capabilities to C programs that Forth already has. Forth has an input queue (the "outer" text interpreter) that looks up and executes commands by ASCII name, as the author recommends. Forth variables and parameters can be named and later accessed by that name, just like the "struct param" entities in the article. Forth already has the data display and manipulation capabilities that Mr. Pettyjohn reinvents in C, plus the Forth routines are nicely factored into pieces that can be combined in countless ways. That is where real flexibility comes in: useful funtionality factored into simple, reusable chunks. While the mechanisms recommended in the article may be similar to Forth, its inventor, Chuck Moore, warns programmers about too much generalization: "Do not put code in your program that _might_ be used... The things you want to do are infinite; that means the each has 0 probability of realization." Obtain generality through factoring the things you have today. I would be interested in what other C or Forth programmers have to say about Mr. Pettyjohn's article. -- Mike Losh From: mlosh@tir.com Subject: What is Tyler Sperry's point about Harris RTX? Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 00:15:08 -0500 Message-ID: <313FC25C.2A79@tir.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win95; I) In the "Real-Time" column of March's _Embedded Systems Programming_, Tyler says "I can think of some CPU designs that have deserved to die --a few several times over." Then he goes on to describe the history of the Harris RTX, and compares it to the announced end of the AMD 29K line. These two processors do not seem very comparable in basic architecture or application. So what is his point on the RTX? He praises some of its capabilities. Is it one of the CPUs that "deserved to die" because of its high price and lack of familiar (C language) development tools? Or are there other CPUs that deserve to die even more than the RTX and the 29K based on technical qualities important to progammers/ engineers, yet do not because of things important to businessmen such as price or availability? -- Mike Losh From: bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) Subject: Re: Forth for UT69R000 (UT1750) Date: 8 Mar 1996 01:15:37 GMT Message-ID: <4ho1np$779@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> References: <4hknlm$elt@post.gsfc.nasa.gov> ( SELF HORN BLOW ) You might be interested in a look at my CamelForth for the 8051 (Harvard model, ANSI compliant). Find it at ftp://ftp.forth.org/pub/Forth/Camel/cam51-11.zip. It was designed to be easy to port, but it has a larger set of CODE words than eForth, so it should run faster. (There are Z80 and 6809 versions as well.) ( SELF HORN -BLOW ) Brad Rodriguez bj@headwaters.com Computers on the Small Scale Contributing Editor, The Computer Journal... http://www.psyber.com/~tcj Director, Forth Interest Group......... http://www.taygeta.com/fig.html === 1996 Rochester Forth Conference: June 19-22 in Toronto, Ontario === = http://maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca/~ns/96roch.html or email me for info = From: bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) Subject: Re: Forth in a PLD? Date: 8 Mar 1996 01:19:27 GMT Message-ID: <4ho1uv$79a@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> References: <826124505snz@tcontec.demon.co.uk> Actually, I did a semi-Forth engine in 2100 gates using standard TTL. Not to be outdone, John Rible did a semi-custom LSI chip that used something like 1650 gates (not sure about the exact number). Both were 16-bit processors. Mine was just a cute gimmick, but John's was a practical CPU. Both were reported at FORML (91? 92?). Anyone have an email address for John Rible? Brad Rodriguez bj@headwaters.com Computers on the Small Scale Contributing Editor, The Computer Journal... http://www.psyber.com/~tcj Director, Forth Interest Group......... http://www.taygeta.com/fig.html === 1996 Rochester Forth Conference: June 19-22 in Toronto, Ontario === = http://maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca/~ns/96roch.html or email me for info = From: bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) Subject: comp.lang.forth FAQ: general (22 Jan 1996), part 1/6 Date: 8 Mar 1996 01:53:28 GMT Message-ID: <4ho3uo$85k@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Reply-To: bj@headwaters.com Archive-name: forth/FAQ/general Comp-lang-forth-archive-name: general-faq Last-modified: 22 Jan 1996 Version: 1.01 Posting-Frequency: monthly comp.lang.forth Frequently Asked Questions, part 1 of 6 General Information Gregory Haverkamp, 10 Apr 1994 J. D. Verne, 30 Oct 1995 Bradford J. Rodriguez, 1 Jan 1996 We are currently seeking a volunteer to maintain this FAQ. Please contact Brad Rodriguez if you're interested. Please send additions, deletions, or changes to Brad Rodriguez in the meantime. [This FAQ is extracted from the October 1995 FAQ 'lite' produced by J. D. Verne, and from the April 1994 comp.lang.forth FAQ produced by Gregory Haverkamp. Thanks, J. D. and Gregory! -bjr] ------------------------------ Subject: Table of Contents [1] General questions [2] Online resources [3] Forth vendors [4] Forth systems [5] Books, periodicals, tutorials [6] Forth groups & organizations The comp.lang.forth FAQ is published in six parts, corresponding to these six sections. This part is the "general" FAQ, where the most common questions are answered. For more information about online resources, vendors, systems, books, or organizations, please refer to the corresponding detailed FAQ. The comp.lang.forth FAQs are archived at (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) This is intended to be a brief overview of the tools and information available for the new FORTHer. For a historical reference, programming paradigms, and deep technical information try some of the listed references. For general questions on the internet, or the methods used to get this information, try the other Usenet groups: news.announce.newusers news.newusers.questions news.announce.important ------------------------------ Subject: [1] General questions Q: What is Forth? A: Forth is a stack-oriented, untyped, extensible language. It is probably best known for its "reverse Polish" (postfix) arithmetic notation, familiar to users of Hewlett-Packard calculators: to add two numbers in Forth, you would type 3 5 + instead of 3+5. The fundamental program unit in Forth is the "word": a named data item, subroutine, or operator. Programming in Forth consists of defining new words in terms of existing ones. The Forth statement : SQUARE DUP * ; defines a new word SQUARE whose function is to square a number (multiply it by itself). Since the entire language structure is embodied in words, the application programmer can "extend" Forth to add new operators, program constructs, or data types at will. The Forth "core" includes operators for integers, addresses, characters, and Boolean values; string and floating-point operators may be optionally added. Q: Why and where is Forth used? A: Although invented in 1970, Forth became widely known with the advent of personal computers, where its high performance and economy of memory were attractive. These advantages still make Forth popular in embedded microcontroller systems, in locations ranging from the Space Shuttle to the bar-code reader used by your Federal Express driver. Forth's interactive nature streamlines the test and development of new hardware. Incremental development, a fast program-debug cycle, full interactive access to any level of the program, and the ability to work at a high "level of abstraction," all contribute to Forth's reputation for very high programmer productivity. These, plus the flexibility and malleability of the language, are the reasons most cited for choosing Forth for embedded systems. Q: What language standards exist for Forth? An American National Standard for Forth, ANSI X3.215-1994, is accepted worldwide as the definitive Forth standard. ("ANS Forth") IEEE Standard 1275-1994, the "Open Firmware" standard, is a Forth derivative which has been adopted by Sun Microsystems, HP, Apple, IBM, and others as the official language for writing bootstrap and driver firmware. Prior Forth standards include the Forth-83 Standard and the Forth-79 Standard issued by the Forth Standards Team. The earlier FIG-Forth, while never formally offered as such, was a de facto "standard" for some years. "FORTH STANDARDS Published standards since 1978 are Forth 79 and Forth 83 from the Forth Standard Team, and ANS Forth - document X3.215-1994 - by the X3J14 Technical Committee. The most recent standard, ANS Forth, defines a set of core words and some optional extensions and takes care to allow great freedom in how these words are implemented. The range of hardware which can support an ANS Forth Standard System is far wider than any previous Forth standard and probably wider than any programming language standard ever. See web page http://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/uathena.htm for latest details. Copies of the standard cost $193, but the final draft of ANS Forth is free and available (subject to copyright restrictions) via ftp..." --Chris Jakeman, apvpeter.demon.co.uk The (un)official ANS Forth document is available at ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/x3j14/dpans94.zip (Word For Windows,v2) ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/x3j14/dpans94.hqx (Word For Macintosh) To get yourself on the ANS-Forth mailing list, consult the various README files at the above site. Two unofficial test suites are available for checking conformance to the ANS Standard Forth: ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/x3j14/tester.fr .../core.fr (to test ANS Standard Systems by John.Hayes@minerva.com) ftp://forth.org/pub/Forth/ANS/stand4th.zip (to test ANS Standard Programs by Jet.Thomas@minerva.com) Q: Where can I find more information? A: There's a lot of info out there. Look for some of it here: Articles from comp.lang.forth are archived at ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/news/ Other Forth-related FAQ's are found at http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/old-faq/ http://www.forth.org/skip.html http://www.forth.org/forth.html Forth Interest Group - address at the end of this FAQ; FIG home page . Q: What is the Forth Interest Group? A: The Forth Interest Group "FIG" was formed in 1978 to disseminate information and popularize the Forth language, and it remains the premier organization for professional Forth programmers. FIG maintains a Web page at http://www.forth.org/forth.html, with a more complete introduction to the Forth language, and links to the Web pages of many Forth vendors. ------------------------------ Subject: [2] Online resources Q: What Forth libraries are available, and how can I access them? A: There are several online repositories of Forth programs, sources, executables, and so on. These various repositories are NOT identical copies of the same things. Material is available on an AS-IS basis due to the charity of the people involved in maintaining the libraries. See the "online" FAQ (part 2 of 6) for a complete listing of online Forth resources. You can get free- and share-ware Forths for various platforms at: ftp://forth.org/pub/Forth/ a.k.a. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/ Various Forths, code, and home of the forth scientific library; this is the official library site of the Forth Interest Group. (forth.org is currently an alias for taygeta.com -bjr) ftp://ftp.uni-bremen.de/pub/languages/programming/forth/Taygeta-Archive A mirror for the taygeta site. ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/ "...an FTP site in Portugal devoted to Forth, which contains a mirror of the FIG library on GEnie, plus whatever anyone has donated. The archive is run by Paulo A. D. Ferreira who has donated the resources for it." --Gregory Haverkamp ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/msdos/forth/ Various Forths and code. ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/simtel20/msdos/forth/ A SIMTEL (MS-DOS software) mirror. ftp://ftp.uu.net/languages/forth/ ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/forth/ "...there is a subdirectory /pub/forth/ that has fprimer.zip on it. There are TWO Forths included, F-PC 3.56 and eForth. Download it via ftp and don't forget to say 'binary' first!" --Julian V. Noble FIG used to maintain a software library on the GEnie service, and you can still find some older files there. You'll need a GEnie account; look for the FORTH Roundtable. -bjr Q: What Forth libraries are available OFF-line? A: Many FIG chapters maintain local software libraries. See the "groups" FAQ (part 6 of 6) to find a local chapter, or contact the Forth Interest Group. The Forth Interest Group maintains a library of Forth files available on disk. Call, fax, or write them for an order form. Mountain View Press is producing a Forth CD-ROM. Contact Mountain View Press, Route 2 Box 429, La Honda, CA 94020 USA, telephone 415-747-0760. ------------------------------ Subject: [3] Forth vendors Q: Why should I use a commercial Forth package? A: "...please keep in mind that various of the publicly available Forths may be experimental in nature; or optimized for size over speed, or viceversa... That is why -- especially for professional/commercial projects -- it is a very good idea to seriously investigate the various high-quality commercial Forths sold by reputable vendors." --Marlin Ouverson, Editor, Forth Dimensions Q: Where can I get a commercial Forth package? A: There are many 'professional' vendors. Here is a short list of some (in no particular order): You can send EMAIL to support@lmi.la.ca.us for a catalog from LMI (Laboratory Microsystems Inc.). "[FORTH, Inc. has] a 16-bit system that can be quite inexpensive for individuals, and 32-bit very full-functioned systems for real-time DOS applications or for Windows (not as real-time, and with a much more Windows- oriented set of features). More info on our Web page at: http://www.earthlink.net/~forth or phone us at 1-800-55FORTH. Cheers... Elizabeth" MILLER MICROCOMPUTER SERVICES A. Richard & Jill A. Miller 61 Lake Shore Road Natick, MA 01760-2099, USA Voice: 508/653-6136, 9am-9pm -0400(EDT) "Our E-mail brochure, 'MMSFORTH and Forth books', is available upon request." --Dick Miller, dmiller@im.lcs.mit.edu "MPE's ProForth for Windows is available from ourselves and from Forth Inc in the USA. It supports Windows 3.1, NT, and 95 from the same binary. A separate version optimised for Windows NT is also in the box. PFW comes with lots of features, including ProForth GUIDE, which lets you draw the user interface on the screen, and then automatically generates the Forth source code for you. Anyone who needs a catalogue or more details, just send your postal address to me." --Stephen Pelc, sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk "Please have a look at bigForth authored by Bernd Paysan. It has an optimizing compiler and follows ANS. I have some experience with the system and can say its very good. ... It has a little window environment, good editors and comes with all source at a reasonable price. Speed comparisons will convince you. Please take a look at http://www.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/cgi-bin/nph-gateway/hphalle2/~paysan/ or contact bernd at paysan@informatik.tu-muenchen.de" --Joerg See the "vendors" FAQ (part 3 of 6) for a more complete and up-to-date listing of Forth vendors. ------------------------------ Subject: [4] Forth systems Q: Where can I find a Forth for my machine? A: Please consult the "systems" FAQ (part 4 of 6) for an exhaustive listing of freeware, shareware, and commercial Forths for various machines. Q: Where can I find a Forth for the IBM PC? A: [under construction - suggestions welcome!] Q: Where can I find a Forth for Linux? A: [under construction - suggestions welcome!] ------------------------------ Subject: [5] Books, periodicals, tutorials Q: What is there in print about Forth? A: For a detailed list of publications and recommended reading, see the "books" FAQ (part 5 of 6). FIG members receive the Forth Dimensions magazine 6 times a year and there are several annual conferences which publish proceedings. Q: What is a good book on Forth? A: The "books" FAQ lists books for beginners and advanced practitioners as well as papers on the evolution of Forth. A good starting point would be the Brodie books: "Starting FORTH: an introduction to the FORTH language and operating system for beginners and professionals" Leo Brodie, Prentice Hall 1981 (2nd Ed., 1987), 346 pages, ISBN 0-13-842922-7, price $29. Chris Jakeman writes: This is the classic introduction to Forth, with helpful cartoons, problems and answers. "Thinking FORTH" Leo Brodie, Prentice Hall, 1984, ??? pages, ISBN: 0-13-917576-8 and 0-13-917568-7 (pbk.), price $20. Dick Miller writes: This is a top-notch book on strategy, and always was our [MMS] top recommendation for the SECOND book, after you bought a textbook to learn the Forth words. This one teaches you which ones to select when, how to hone your habits for better Forth (and other) programming, etc. It's been unavailable for a year or two, and has been reprinted at last! MMS has worked to reduce its price from a proposed $40 (in paperback), and is pleased to offer it at $19.95. ------------------------------ Subject: [6] Forth groups & organizations Q: How can I contact the Forth Interest Group? A: Forth Interest Group P.O. Box 2154 Oakland, California 94621 telephone: 510-893-6784 (510-89-FORTH) fax: 510-535-1295 e-mail: johnhall@aol.com Forth Interest Group home page Q: How do I join the Forth Interest Group? A: Membership is $40/year before March 1, 1996; $45/year after that date. Members outside the U.S. should add $15/year for international postage. Payment should be by Visa, MasterCard, or a check in U.S. dollars on a U.S. bank. "Your membership includes a subscription to the bimonthly magazine Forth Dimensions. FIG also offers its members an on-line data base, a large selection of Forth literature and other services." "Your membership entitles you to a 10% discount on publications..." --FIG order form From: bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) Subject: comp.lang.forth FAQ: groups (6 Jan 1996), part 6/6 Date: 8 Mar 1996 01:54:15 GMT Message-ID: <4ho407$85v@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Reply-To: bj@headwaters.com Archive-name: forth/FAQ/groups Comp-lang-forth-archive-name: groups-faq Last-modified: 6 Jan 1996 Version: 1.00 Posting-Frequency: monthly comp.lang.forth Frequently Asked Questions, part 6 of 6 Forth Groups & Organizations Bradford J. Rodriguez, 1 Jan 1996 We are currently seeking a volunteer to maintain this FAQ. Please contact Brad Rodriguez if you're interested. Please send additions, deletions, or changes to Brad Rodriguez in the meantime. ------------------------------ Subject: Table of Contents [1] Forth Organizations [2] FIG Chapters [3] Forth Conferences NOTE: this FAQ is in the early stages of construction. Contributions and suggestions are welcome. ------------------------------ Subject: [1] Forth Organizations Forth Interest Group (FIG) P.O. Box 2154 Oakland, CA 94621 USA telephone: 510-893-6784 (510-89-FORTH) fax: 510-535-1295 e-mail: johnhall@aol.com Membership in FIG is US$40 per year (before March 1st), plus an additional US$15 per year for foreign members. This includes a subscription to the bimonthly magazine Forth Dimensions. FIG holds the annual FORML conference. FIG-UK The UK Chapter of the Forth Interest Group publishes its own Forthwrite magazine 6 times a year, maintains an extensive lending library of books and periodicals (including Forth Dimensions, JOFAR and FORML) with a number of items on disk too. Meetings with invited speakers are held 4 times a year at the South Bank University, London. To join (at only 10 pounds a year, you can't afford not to :-) contact Doug Neale on 0181 542 2747 or by post to: 58 Woodland Way MORDEN Surrey SM4 4DS Institute for Applied Forth Research 70 Elmwood Avenue Rochester, NY 14611 USA telephone 716-235-0168 email: lforsley@jwk.com Publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Forth Application and Research, and holds the annual Rochester Forth Conference. Association for Computing Machinery (SIGForth) ACM's Special Interest Group on Forth has been absorbed into ACM SIGPlan, the Special Interest Group on Programming Languages. ------------------------------ Subject: [2] FIG Chapters [This section is under revision. If you have information about an active FIG chapter, please send it to the FAQ maintainer.] CANADA Southern Ontario Chapter Meets quarterly, 1st Sat. of March/June/Dec., 2nd Sat. of Sept., 2 pm, at McMaster University, General Science Building, Rm. 301, Hamilton, Ontario. Contact Dr. N. Solntseff, 905-525-9140 x.23443, . Maintains software library. UNITED KINGDOM see "FIG-UK" listing under "[1] Forth Organizations" ------------------------------ Subject: [3] Forth Conferences Rochester Forth Conference The Rochester Forth Conference is held in (or near) the Eastern U.S. every June. This year's conference, the 16th annual, will be held from June 19-22 at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The conference theme is "Open Systems" and papers are being solicited. Direct inquiries to the Program Chair, Nicholas Solntseff, . WWW page: EuroForth Conference The EuroForth Conference is held in various European countries, usually in late October or early November. The 1996 conference is scheduled to be held in St. Petersburg, Russia. FORML Conference The FORML Conference is held at the Asilomar Conference Center in California every November. Other Forth conferences have been held in Australia and China. From: bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) Subject: comp.lang.forth FAQ: systems (1 Mar 1996), part 4/6 Date: 8 Mar 1996 01:55:00 GMT Message-ID: <4ho41k$877@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Reply-To: jverne@acs.ryerson.ca Archive-name: forth/FAQ/systems Comp-lang-forth-archive-name: systems-faq Last-modified: 1 Mar 1996 Version: 1.02 Posting-Frequency: monthly comp.lang.forth Frequently Asked Questions, part 4 of 6 Forth Systems: Commercial, Shareware, and Freeware Stephen J. Bevan, 19 Sept 1995 Bradford J. Rodriguez, 7 Feb 1996 J. D. Verne, 1 Mar 1996 Please send additions, deletions, omissions, or changes to Jon D. Verne . [This FAQ is adopted in its entirety from the "implementations" FAQ produced by Stephen J. Bevan, last updated September 1995. Thanks Stephen! -bjr] ------------------------------ Subject: Table of Contents This section of the Forth FAQ describes the Forth systems that are currently available and/or have been asked about in the group. Topics Covered: [1] Forth for the 8051/8031 [2] Forth for a PC [3] 32-bit protected-mode PC Forth [4] Forth for Windows (3.1/NT) [5] Forth for OS/2 [6] Forth for the 6811/68HC16 [7] Forth written in C [8] Forth for UNIX [9] Forth for a Sun [10] Forth for a MAC [11] Forth for an Amiga [12] Forth for an Atari ST [13] Forth for a Transputer [14] Forth for a Tandy TRS-80 [15] Forth for the Apple II [16] Forth for 68000 boards (including cross development from PCs) [17] Forth for (miscellaneous) DSP chips [18] Forth for VMS [19] Forth for playing with Music [20] PD/ShareWare Forth for the BrouHaHa-7245 [21] Forth that isn't necessarily Forth [22] Forth Vendors/Authors [23] Contributors to the FAQ Search for [#] to get to question number # quickly. Note the sections are in "digest" form so cooperating NEWS/MAIL readers can step through the sections easily. Recent Changes: 1995-07 bevan Partially brought up to date after years of neglect. 1995-07-22 bevan Added FP-C description. 1995-07-22 bevan Added wpforth listing. 1995-07-22 bevan Added OOF listing. 1995-07-22 bevan Added Ale Forth listing. 1995-07-22 bevan Added gforth description. 1995-08-07 bevan Updated 51forth address. 1995-08-07 bevan Added author for Pygmy Forth. 1995-08-07 bevan Added MacQForth entry. 1995-09-13 bevan Updated New Micros address information. 1995-09-19 bevan Updated Apple II info. wrt LWV latest Apple II catalogue. 1996-01-01 bjr Changed taygeta path. 1996-03-01 jdv Added TURBO-Forth listing. Resolved duplicate info. Note: 1. In the following a number of Forth systems are listed as being available from particular anonymous ftp addresses or from "good archives". In the case of the former, wherever possible try and find as close a site as possible to pick up the source from. 2. Most of the vendors mentioned below can supply a Forth system for a wide variety of platforms. If you can't find a Forth system for your platform explicitly listed, try any/all the vendors listed. 3. If an entry is short it is probably because the system is available on more than one machine. Company addresses, and contact information are in section [22], below. ------------------------------ Subject: [1] Forth for the 8051/8031 Commercial: AM Research: Sells a Forth cross-development for the 8051 that features a kernel of less than 700 bytes. FORTH Inc.: chipFORTH. LMI sell a 8051 system. [ details ? - bevan ] Mikrap and Forth Systeme sell SwissForth and act as agents for LMI. MPE: Forth5 Cross compiler. Offete: 8051 eForth, C. H. Ting -- $25.00 A small ROM based Forth system with source code in MASM. Free: William H. Payne, the author of "Embedded Controller Forth for the 8051 Family", has made all the code for the system described in his book available. Please see ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/8051/read51.txt EFORTH51.ZIP may be downloaded free of charge from the RealTime Control and Forth Board (RCFB) [see] or from the GEnie Forth Interest Group RoundTable. 51forth is a subroutine threaded Forth by Scott Gehmlich. ftp://fims-ftp.massey.ac.nz/pub/GMoretti/51forth.zip [SJB:93&APH:950807] CamelForth/51 by Brad Rodriguez is an ANSI Standard Forth that is free for non-commercial work (negotiate with he author if you want to use it in a commercial product). ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Camel/cam51-11.zip [SJB:950721] ------------------------------ Subject: [2] Forth for a PC Commercial: FORTH, Inc.: polyFORTH. Harvard Softworks sells HS/FORTH. Can link with *.obj files. MMS: MMSFORTH V2.5 for systems with and without DOS. MPE: PC PowerForth Plus v3.2 and Modular Forth v3.6 LMI also sell PC based Forths. [ details? - bevan ] MP7: TURBO-Forth. Four versions available for specific CPU's. Also: FASTGRAF; an I/O and graphic package for TURBO-Forth. [JDV:960216] Free: Golden Porcupine Forth, v92.5 by Alexandr Larionov. Distributed as FREEWARE for non-commercial work. Includes various useful libraries for graphics, sound &etc. Follows the Forth-83 Standard. Russian docs. Phone: 7 095 288-2660. [VPF:93] Pygmy Forth v1.4 is a small, 16-bit MS-DOS Forth written by Frank Sergeant that is modelled after Chuck Moore's cmFORTH for NOVIX. It is shareware but there is no charge for registration. If you DO choose to register, there is a Bonus Disk with goodies for ~$20. Complete with documented source code, editor, assembler, and metacompiler. TCOM v2.5 by Tom Zimmer is a 16bit cross/metacompiler for MS-DOS. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/tcom25.zip [SJB:950720] F-PC v3.6 is a 16-bit Forth that is based on the Forth-83 standard but includes numerous extensions. Very complete implementation. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/fpc36.zip http://www.efn.org/~fwarren/fpc.html [SJB:950722] hForth v0.9.5 by Wonyong Koh is an ANS Forth inspired by eForth. This free beta release is ANS compliant, and all commented MASM source code is included. There are actually three hForth models to choose from: A standard EXE (for segmented memory machines), RAM (for any other RAM- only system), and ROM (for small embedded systems). The author asserts that it is very easy to optimize for any specific CPU. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/hf86v09.zip [SJB:950720] wpforth v1.0 by Albert Chan is a prototype of a typographical programming system built around WordPerfect v5.x and Pygmy Forth v1.4. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/wpforth.zip [SJB:950722] The following are available in any SIMTEL mirror site: 4thcmp21.zip: Native code Forth compiler: COM, EXE, SYS, TSR, ROM bbl_[ab].zip: Fast 32-bit Forth based on F83 -- needs work fig86.zip: Original Fig-86 Forth compiler min4th25.zip: MiniForth system v2.5, with A86 source uniforth.zip: Sampler of floating point Forth compiler zen1_10.zip: Forth with source to match ANS X3J14, BASIS 10 [SJB:931030] ------------------------------ Subject: [3] 32-bit protected-mode PC Forth Commercial: Bradley Forthware sells Forthmacs for $250. Price includes source and DOS extender. FORTH Inc.: polyFORTH Harvard Softworks has a version of HS/FORTH that provides access to a full, flat 4Gb of memory. [JVN:93] LMI sells a 32-bit protected-mode Forth called 80386 UR/FORTH. It runs on DOS and is based on the 'Phar Lap' DOS Extender. It is fully compatible with XMS, EMS, and DPMI memory managers. MPE: ProForth for DOS v2 Offete has a 386 protected-mode 32 bit eForth. It comes with source code and a public domain DOS extender. eForth is a minimal forth with only about 30 words coded in assembler, so it is very easy to understand. bigFORTH by Bernd Paysan. [see] Free: OOF is an object-oriented 32-bit Forth System written by Zsoter Andras. Does not use a threaded paradigm, and generates native machine code. Although may ANS Forth programs will run on OOF, it is not fully ANS Forth compliant. All source is under the GPL. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/oof.zip [SJB:940722] Ale Forth by Johns Lutz Sammer. Implements ANS Basis 17 wordset along with lots of extensions. Supports subroutine threading, native code generation and inline words. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/alefth.zoo [SJB:940722] ------------------------------ Subject: [4] Forth for Windows (3.1/NT) Commercial: Bradley Forthware: Forthmacs is available for Windows 3.1 and costs $250. It includes an EMACS editor and comes complete with source. LMI WinForth v1.01 is a 16-bit Forth for Windows 3.1 available from their BBS for a $100 (US) fee. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/wfshr101.exe [SJB:940721] MPE: ProForth for Windows v1.4. Free: Jax4th, a freeware 32-bit Forth for Windows NT complete with source code. The current version features complete access to NT DLL's and BLOCK loading facility. Written in MASM by Jack Woehr [see]. ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/forth/JX4NT106.ZIP [JJW:931021] LMI WinForth. [see above] Win32forth v1.20292 by Tom Zimmer and Andrew McKewan. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/win32for.zip [SJB:940721] ------------------------------ Subject: [5] Forth for OS/2 Commercial: Forth/2 by Michael A. Warot [see] and Brian Mathewson [see] can be licensed for commercial work. Talk to Brian if you have something to add or you have any suggestions regarding Forth/2. Contact Michael if you want to obtain a commercial license and/or source code. ftp://ftp-os2.cdrom.com/pub/os2/2_x/program/forth025.zip ftp://ftp-os2.nmsu.edu/os2/2_x/program/forth025.zip Free: Forth/2 by Michael A. Warot and Brian Mathewson is available by ftp for non-commercial work. [see above] ------------------------------ Subject: [6] Forth for the 6811/68HC16 Commercial: FORTH Inc.: chipFORTH. MPE: Forth5 Cross Compiler. New Micros: MaxFORTH. New Micros has a version of Forth for the '6811 called Max-FORTH, which is burned into the ROMs of their OEM '6811. Max-FORTH uses the serial port to talk to the outside world, and can be set up to compile to off-chip ram (which links into the on-chip ROM). [BL:931117] Free: various at ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/68hc11/ and ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Archive/68hc11/ [ anyone care to give a breakdown of what is a available? - bevan ] ------------------------------ Subject: [7] Forth written in C Commercial: Bradley Forthware C-Forth costs $100. Free: ThisForth v1.0.0.d is an ANS Forth written by Will Baden. You will need M4 and an ANSI-C compiler to compile it. Binaries are available for a number of architectures (CRAY, MIPS, SUN, SGI). ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/ANS/this4th.tar.gz [SJB:940720] PFE (Portable Forth Environment) v0.9.14 is an ANS compatible Forth implementation written in ANSI-C. All the code is under the GNU General Public Licence. Binaries for various architectures available. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/ANS/pfe*.* [SJB:940720] gforth is an alpha version written by Anton Ertl, Bernd Paysan and others. It is an ANS Forth written in C, and it makes use of GNU C extensions so you will need GCC version 2+. Supports indirect threading on all architectures. Supports direct threading on the following: 386, alpha, hppa, m68k, mips, power and sparc. Includes documentation in TeXinfo. http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth-0.1alpha.tar.gz http://www.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/cgi-bin/nph-gateway/hphalle2/ ~paysan/gforth_toc.html http://www.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/cgi-bin/nph-gateway/hphalle2/ ~paysan/gforth.tar.gz [SJB:950722] HENCE4TH v1.2 - A figForth written in C that currently runs under V7 Unix, Personal C Compiler, and Mix Power C. Porting to other platforms should be trivial, considering how vastly different these three are! ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/msdos/forth/ [KH:93] C-Forth available from comp.sources.unix and also ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/unix/c-forth.tar.z Until v2.5.1 is (almost) Forth-83 written in C. Its internals are described in the book "Write Your Own Programming Language Using C++" (ISBN# 1-55622-264-5) by Norman Smith . The implementation was designed to call C functions and be called by other C functions, so it is ideal as a 'macro' language embedded in C/C++ applications. Comes with 175 pages of documentation. A browsable version is on the Web. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/until251.zip [SJB:950720] ------------------------------ Subject: [8] Forth for UNIX Commercial: Bradley Forthware: Forthmacs costs $200 and runs on a number of platforms. Free: TILE: A 32 bit Forth 83. $50 suggested shareware contribution to Mikael Patel. Written in C; runs on Suns [others?]. 68K: An indirect threaded 32-bit Forth based on the 83 standard. Written in 68K assembly (Motorola format) by Andy Valencia ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/68000/forth-68000.tar.Z [SJB:94] Forth-83: A UNIX port of F83 is available. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Archive/f83.tar.z PDP-11: A version of FIG-Forth in PDP-11 assembler. ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/others/pdp114th.zip [SJB:950718] LINUX/386: An eForth v1.0 port (by Francois-Rene Rideau) to Linux on an i386 architecture is based on the DJGPP/GO32 version by Andy Valencia. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/linux-eforth-1.0c.tar.gz [SJB:950720] Also see section [7]. ------------------------------ Subject: [9] Forth for a Sun Commercial: Bradley Forthware: Their Forthmacs costs $200. It comes with source code, an assembly debugger, and floating point routines. Free: Open Boot PROM: built-in to the SPARCstation PROMs. Inaccessible from the Unix environment; you have to interrupt the boot process and then type 'n' to get to Forth. For more information on this see http://www.firmworks.com [SJB:950720] See also: [7] & [8] ------------------------------ Subject: [10] Forth for a MAC Commercial: Bradley Forthware: Forthmacs is available for $50. MacForth by Creative Solutions [details?]. Reviewed in Dr. Dobbs #108. Free: Yerk is an object oriented language based on Forth for the Macintosh and was originally a product marketed as Neon (reviewed in Dr. Dobbs #108 1985). Yerk runs on all Macs with at least System 6.0 but requires System 7.0 (or greater) for full compatibility. ftp://astro.uchicago.edu/pub/MAC/Yerk/yerk_367.sea.bin ftp://astro.uchicago.edu/pub/MAC/Yerk/yerkManual3.67.sea.bin Mops v2.6 is an object oriented Forth also derived from Neon. http://www.netaxs.com/~jayfar/mops.html ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Mops/Mops26s.sea ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Mops/Mops26m.sea [SJB:950718] Chris Heilman: Pocket Forth. Subroutine threaded with 16-bit words. Supports 16-bit relative and 32-bit absolute addressing. Allows "inline" definitions, but doesn't have an in-line assembler. Minimal Toolbox support but it does supports Apple Events. Comes as an application (17K) and a desk accessory, and can generate stand-alone applications. Distribution comes with complete source; the kernel is in assembly (MPW). MacQForth is an adaptation of (Apple II) QForth to the Macintosh. Created with Mops [see] and accompanied by the Mops sources. An attractive introductory package, including some witty and instructive material proselytizing on behalf of Forth. FTP from 'sumex-aim' mirrors. ftp://info-mac/dev/mac-q-forth-10.hqx [BB:950807] ------------------------------ Subject: [11] Forth for an Amiga Commercial: Delta Research: JForth Professional 3.x true-compiled Forth for $179.95. Includes a tutorial, libraries, and examples. [MH:93] Free: A4th by Appleman. A4th is a 32-bit port of L&P F83 complete with metacompiler written for the A1000. ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/amiga/a4th*.* [JJW:931021] Joerg Plewe: F68K and F68KANS should work if you can obtain/implement a loader. Jax4th is a dp-ANS2 implementation by Jack J. Woehr. It is available on the RCFB [see]. [JJW:931021] ------------------------------ Subject: [12] Forth for an Atari ST Commercial: Bradley Forthware: Forthmacs is available for $50 w/ optional GEM support. Bernd Paysan: bigFORTH is available for 200 DM. Extras: Source code, floating point, GEM interface, object oriented FORTH, native code compiler. F68KANS by Joerg Plewe. As per the free version, but you can use it commercially. Contact Joerg for licensing details. HiSoft FORTH is a 32 bit Forth for the Atari ST, with full support for GEM. It is subroutine threaded, and a Motorola 68000 assembler is also included. The price in the UK is about 39 pounds. [HM:93] Free: F68K and F68KANS by Joerg Plewe. ------------------------------ Subject: [13] Forth for a Transputer Commercial: MPE: Forth5 Cross Compiler. Offete: eFORTH has been ported to the Transputer by Bob Barr Free: There is a free/public-domain transputer forth written by Laurie Pegrum available. It is an implementation of Forth for 16 & 32 bit transputers that includes source. It requires the D705 occam development system, and a 32 bit transputer board with 1M of memory to recompile. ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/parallel/software/forth ------------------------------ Subject: [14] Forth for a Tandy TRS-80 Commercial: MMS: MMSFORTH V2.4 nonDOS version only. MVP has an MVP-Forth for the TRS80 Model4 called Model4th, written by Art Wetmore. ------------------------------ Subject: [15] Forth for the Apple II Commercial: Apple Forth 1.6: Cap'n Software - Uses a unique disk format. [LWV:93] 6502 Forth 1.2: Programma International. [LWV:93] FORTH II for the II+ or //e by Softape. [LWV:93] Raven Forth (+) by C. K. Haun, runs on IIgs. Available on GEnie Library 19 as file 903. [LWV:950919] MicroMotion: F-79, MasterFORTH. MVP-FORTH - [ more info? - bevan ] Free: GraFORTH(+) (DOS 3.3 only) by Paul Lutus. Available on GEnie Library 8, file 3299. [LWV:950919] Mad Apple Forth(+) ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/system/apple2/Lang/Forth [LWV:93] Purple Forth(+) ftp://cco.caltech.edu/pub/apple2/8bit/source [LWV:93] Q Forth(+) v2.0, Alpha 1.0, is a small integer Forth written by Toshiyasu Morita ftp://ftp.uu.net/systems/apple2/languages/forth [LWV:93] GS 16 FORTH II, Version II (+) - A 16 bit Forth implementation able to make use of the GS Toolbox. Includes assembler, full screen editor. ftp://cco.caltech.edu/pub/apple2/source/GS16Forth.shk Also available on GEnie: Library 18, file 2124/2125. [LWV:950919] ------------------------------ Subject: [16] Forth for 68000 boards (including cross development from PCs) Commercial: Bradley Forthware: ForthMon is available for $500. Forth Inc.: chipFORTH MPE: Forth5 Cross compiler. Free: There is a version of Laxen and Perry's F83 which will metacompile 68000 code on a PC that can be burned to ROM, or used with S records any way you like. It is available on GEnie as M16PC.ARC. [ A README is available as ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/68000/m16what.txt which lists the files that make up the system, but they don't match those in the directory. Anyone care to investigate? - bevan ] [MC:93] bot-Forth: The source code is comprised of 3 parts: the metacompiler, the mini-assembler, and the kernel. The kernel will metacompile itself. The metacompiler was presented at the 1989 Rochester Forth Conference. ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/68000/botfth68.arc ~/botforth.txt [SJB:93] Joerg Plewe: F68ANS and F68K [see] A subroutine threaded eForth for VME 68K system is available on GEnie as MVME167.ZIP. It is an implementation of ECBE4TH 32-bit eForth derived from Haskell. ------------------------------ Subject: [17] Forth for (miscellaneous) DSP chips Commercial: TCOM FORTH Target Compiler by Tom Zimmer and Andrew McKewen has been extended for the TMS320. It also supports 808X, 80196 and SuperZ8 Computer Continuum is developing a XT/AT board for the ADSP-2101 running Forth. [ is it ready yet? - bevan ] FORTH Inc.: chipForth. Offete: A port of eFORTH to ADSP2100 is being contemplated [ is the contemplation over yet? - bevan ] Micro-K Systems produce complete AT&T DSP32 boards running Forth. Includes the AT&T DSP library. MPE: Forth5 Cross Compiler. ------------------------------ Subject: [18] Forth for VMS You can find three Forth implementations in ftp://hpcsos.col.hp.com/mirrors/forth/vax [SJB:950721] Klaus Flesch wrote a VAX VMS Forth some years ago. It is believed to be derived from FIG-FORTH. Availability is uncertain, try contacting the author c/o Forth Systeme. See also: [7] & [8] as some C and UNIX based systems _may_ port without _too_ much effort. ------------------------------ Subject: [19] Forth for playing with Music Commercial: HMSL (Hierarchical Music Specification Language) Phil Burk, Centre for Contemporary Music at Mills College Frog Peak Music, and Delta Research PO Box 151051, San Rafael, CA 94915-1051 Email: phil@mills.edu ------------------------------ Subject: [20] PD/ShareWare Forth for the BrouHaHa-7245 CP/M/Z80 CamelForth/80 by Brad Rodriguez is an ANSI Standard Forth that is free for non-commercial work (please negotiate with the author if you want to use it commercially). ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Camel/cam80-12.zip [SJB:950721] 6809 CamelForth/09 by Brad Rodriguez. Free. [but see above for restrictions] ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Camel/cam09-10.zip [SJB:950721] Archimedes/RISCOS Forthmacs is Hanno Schwalm's port of Mitch Bradleys "Forthmacs 3.0". This Risc-OS Forthmacs currently followes the Forth-83 standard in many ways. The code has been written with portability to other platforms and former versions in mind. It runs almost any software that has been written for 'Forthmacs', or will with very little re-coding. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Reviewed/forthmacs.arc ------------------------------ Subject: [21] Forth that isn't necessarily Forth Commercial: FIFTH by Software Construction Co. Available for the Amiga & PC. [others?] Charles Moore's OK. Available through Offete Enterprises for a PC for around $75. [RH:940314] Free: Kevo by Antero Taivalsaari is a prototypical (classless) object-oriented language which has a Forth feel to it. Runs on Macs. Features multitasking, dynamic memory management, and an integrated Mac Finder -like iconic programming environment. Comes with source, demo programs, and some documentation. ftp://cs.uta.fi/pub/kevo/* [AT:931021] annforth by Bruce J. McDonald. No documentation, but a header file states "ANN simulator with forth interpreter". Written in C++. ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Archive/unix/annforth.arc [SJB:931026] ------------------------------ Subject: [22] Forth Vendors/Authors AM Research, 4600 Hidden Oaks Lane, Loomis, CA. 95650 USA phone: (916) 652-7472 or 1-800-949-8051 Bernd Paysan, Stockmannstr. 14, D-81477 Munchen, Germany. email: paysan@informatik.tu-muenchen.de Products: bigFORTH 386, bigFORTH ST Bradley Forthware Inc. P.O. Box 4444 Mountain View, CA, 94040 voice: (415) 961-1302 fax: (415) 962-0927 email: wmb@forthware.com Products: Forthmacs, ForthMon, C Forth, floating point libraries Computer Continuum, Specialists in Motion Control and Data Acquisition. Eric Reiter, Engineer, Owner, 75 Southgate Ave., Suite 6 Daly City, CA 94015 phone: (415) 755-1978 Creative Solutions, 4701 Randolph Road, Suite 12, Rockville, Maryland, 20852 phone: (301) 984-0262 or 1-800-FORTH-OK On CompuServe 'GO FORTH' at prompt to the Forth SIG they sponsor. Delta Research, P.O. Box 151051, San Rafael, CA, 94915-1051 phone: (415) 453-4320 Products: JForth Professional 3.x for $179.95, HMSL (Hierarchical Music Specification Language) [w/ Frog Peak Music] FORTH Inc. 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 300 Manhattan Beach, CA, 90266-6847 phone: (310) 372-8493 or (US only) 1-800-55FORTH fax: (310) 318-7130 email: forthsales@forth.com http://www.earthlink.net/~forth Products: polyFORTH, chipFORTH, MPE's ProForth for Windows Forth Systeme, P.O. Box 1103, Breisach, Germany. phone: 7767-551 Harvard Softworks, P.O. Box 69, Springboro, OH 45066 phone: (513) 748-0390 Chris Heilman, PO Box 8345, Phoenix, AZ 85066-8345 email: heilman@pc.maricopa.edu compuserve: 70566,1474 Products: Pocket Forth (for the Mac). HiSoft: email: hisoft@cix.compulink.co.uk Joerg Plewe, Haarzopfer Str. 32, D-45472 Muelheim an der Ruhr, GERMANY phone: (+49)-(0)208-497068 email: joerg.plewe@mpi-dortmund.mpg.de Products: F68K, F68KANS LMI: Laboratory Microsystems Inc. 12555 W. Jefferson Blvd., Suite 202, Los Angles, CA 90066 USA voice: (310) 306-7412 fax: (310) 301-0761 BBS (310) 306-3530 email: lmi@nic.cerf.net MMS: Miller Microcomputer Services 61 Lake Shore Road, Natick, MA 01760-2099, USA. phone: 617/653-6136 (9am-9pm EST) email: dmiller@im.lcs.mit.edu Products: MMSFORTH V2.5, MMSFORTH/MS-DOS, TGRAPH vector graphics, DATAHANDLER and DATAHANDLER-PLUS flat-file databases, FORTHWRITE word-processor EXPERT-2 expert system, MMSFORTH V2.4, Forth books, and some Conference Proceedings (email book list sent by request) MP7: 17, allee de la Noiseraie, F-93160 NOISY LE GRAND, FRANCE phone: (33) 1 43 03 40 36 email: 100647.3306@compuserve.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mp7 Products: TURBO-Forth, FASTGRAF graphics & I/O package, French-language Forth books MPE: MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd., 133 Hill Lane, Shirley, Southampton, SO1 5AF U.K. phone: 01703-631441 fax: 01703-339691 email: mpe@mpeltd.demon.co.uk U.S. contact: AMICS Enterprises (phone: 716-461-9187) Canadian contact: Universal Cross-Assemblers (phone: 506-847-0681) Free catalogue available on request. Products: Forth5 Cross Compilers (v5.1) for target chips: 80x96, 8031/51x/55x, 68HC1[16], 680x0/68332, Z80/64180, TMS320C3x, H8/500, RTX2000/1A/10. PC PowerForth Plus v3.2, Modular Forth v3.6 for MS-DOS, ProForth for DOS v2 (was PowerForth/386), ProForth for Windows v1.4 MicroMotion, 12077 Wilshire Boulevard, #506, Los Angeles, CA 90025 USA phone: (213) 821-4340 Products: MicroMotion FORTH-79, MasterFORTH MVP: Mountain View Press, Box 429 Star Route 2 La Honda, CA 94020 USA New Micros Inc. 1601 Chalk Hill Rd. Dallas, Texas 75212 USA phone: (214) 339-2204 fax: (214) 339-1585 email: general@newmicros.com http://www.newmicros.com/general Offete Enterprises, Inc. 1306 South B Street, San Mateo, CA 94402 USA phone: (415) 574-8250 Software Construction Co., Inc. 2900B Longmire College Station, Texas 77845 USA phone: (409) 696-5432 Michael A. Warot, PO BOX 4043, Hammond, Indiana 46324 USA email: ka9dgx@chinet.com Brian Mathewson, 21576 Kenwood Avenue, Rocky River, OH 44116-1232 email: bbm@r2d2.eeap.cwru.edu Products: Forth/2 for OS/2 2.0 Jack J. Woehr, sysop of the RealTime Control and Forth Board (RCFB) BBS: (303) 278-0364 email: jax@cygnus.com ------------------------------ Subject: [23] Contributors to the FAQ Thanks to the following for providing the information that makes up this section of the FAQ: BB: Bruce Bennet SJB: Stephen J Bevan MB: Mitch Bradley MC: Mike Coughlin VPF: Valery P Frolov KH: Kevin Haddock MH: Mike Haas RH: Rick Hoensee APH: Andrew P. Houghton HM: Henry McGeough DM: Dick Miller BL: Benjamin Lee CL: Nan-Hung (Carl) Lin JVN: Julian V. Noble BP: Bernd Paysan AT: Antero Taivalsaari LWV: Larry W. Virden JJW: Jack J. Woehr From: bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) Subject: comp.lang.forth FAQ: online (1 Jan 1996), part 2/6 Date: 8 Mar 1996 01:56:25 GMT Message-ID: <4ho449$88p@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Reply-To: forl@artopro.mlnet.com Archive-name: forth/FAQ/online Comp-lang-forth-archive-name: online-faq Last-modified: 1 Jan 1996 Version: 1.00 Posting-Frequency: monthly Send additions, deletions, or changes to Kenneth O'Heskin The Forth Online Resources Quick-Ref Card Listing ------------------------------------------------- WWW version: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/forl.html A detailed hardcopy version with additional data is available in Forth Dimensions magazine (below). ------------------------------------------------- --Bulletin Boards-- Arcane Incantations 617-899-6672 Art of Programming BBS 604-826-9663 Bitter Butter Better BBS 503-691-7938 Gold Country Forth BBS 916-652-7117 LMI Forth BBS 310-306-3530 MindLink (604) 528-3500 Telnet: mindlink.bc.ca RCFB "The Rocky Coast Free Board" 303.278.0364 The FROG Pond BBS 716/461-1924 --FTP Sites-- ANS Forth x3j14 ftp://ftp.uu.net Asterix Forth archive ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth Brain ftp://brain.physics.swin.oz.au Cygnus Support Ftp Service ftp://ftp.cygnus.com David N. Williams ftp://williams.physics.lsa.umich.edu/pub/forth Dwight Elvey ftp://hal.com/pub/elvey Fare's FTP site, FORTH subsection ftp://frmap711.mathp7.jussieu.fr/pub/scratch/rideau/ Hewlett Packard ftp://col.hp.com/mirrors/Forth Marcel Hendrix ftp://iaehv.iaehv.nl/pub/users/mhx Microtronix ftp://ftp.microtronix.com/pub/forth SimTel ftp://ftp.coast.net/SimTel/msdos/forth Yerk ftp://astro.uchicago.edu/pub/MAC/Yerk --FTP/Web Sites-- Institut fr Computersprachen http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/projects/forth.html Ron's Mac and Apple II archive http://141.106.68.98/ or ftp:/141.106.68.98/ Skip Carter's Forth Page http://www.forth.org/forth.html The Mops Page http://www.netaxs.com/~jayfar/mops.html University of Bremen http://ftp.uni-bremen.de/FTP/ftp.html --Internet Mailing Lists-- FIRE-L subscribe: listserv@artopro.mlnet.com MISC mailing list subscribe: misc-request@pisa.rockefeller.edu The Win32For mailing list subscribe: win32for-requests@edmail.spc.uchicago.edu --Electronic Mailboxes-- ANSForth Mail Group ansforth-request@minerva (for joining ANSForth mail group) FIG (Board of Directors) fig@forth.org (Forth Interest Group) LMI Technical Support support@lmi.la.ca.us Miller Microcomputer Services dmiller@im.lcs.mit.edu The Forth Online Resources Survey forl@artopro.mlnet.com --Newsgroups, Conferences, et. al-- comp.lang.forth ftp://asterix.inescn.pt/pub/forth/news/ CompuServe Forth Forum (type) GO FORTH GEnie Information Services (GEIS) 800-638-9636. --World Wide Web-- 1996 Rochester Conference http://maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca/~ns/96roch.html ATLAST http://www.fourmilab.ch Bernd Paysan's Web site http://www.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/cgi-bin/nph-gateway/hphalle2/~paysan/ euroFORTH http://www.paisley.ac.uk/~cis/euro FIG home page http://www.forth.org/fig.html FORTH, Inc. Home Page http://www.earthlink.net/~forth F-PC Homepage http://www.efn.org/~fwarren/fpc.html Immersive Systems, Inc. http://www.immersive.com Jeff Fox's Home Page http://www.dnai.com/~jfox Jumbo http://www.jumbo.com/prog/dos/forth/ Laboratory Microsystems Inc. (LMI) http://www.cerfnet.com/~lmi Learning Forth Page http://sherman.pas.rochester.edu/Forth/forth.html Leo Brodie Services http://www.pacificrim.net/~lbrodie/lbs.html New Micros Inc http://www.newmicros.com/systems Nick Francesco's Forth Page http://raptor.rit.edu/Nick/forth.htm Open FirmWare http://www.firmworks.com Peter J Knaggs http://www.paisley.ac.uk/~cis/forth Phil Koopman's Forth Mini-Page http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~koopman Pocket Forth Home Page http://chemlab.pc.maricopa.edu/pocket.html Roger Ivie http://cc.usu.edu/~ivie/ The Computer Journal http://www2.psyber.com/~tcj/groups.html The TUNES project http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/rideau/Tunes/ Tout sur le Forth en France http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mp7 Triangle Digital Services Ltd http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/triangle From Forth Dimensions XVII No.4 Nov/Dec 1995 ================================= current FIG address/contact info: ================================= Forth Interest Group P.O. Box 2154 Oakland, California 94621 telephone: 510-893-6784 fax: 510-535-1295 e-mail: johnhall@aol.com Forth Interest Group home page: http://www.forth.org/fig.html From: bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) Subject: comp.lang.forth FAQ: vendors (4 Mar 1996), part 3/6 Date: 8 Mar 1996 01:57:14 GMT Message-ID: <4ho45q$89c@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Reply-To: l.g.lisle@ieee.org Archive-name: forth/FAQ/vendors Comp-lang-forth-archive-name: vendors-faq Last-modified: 4 Mar 1996 Version: 1.01 Posting-Frequency: monthly comp.lang.forth Frequently Asked Questions, part 3 of 6 Forth Vendors Send all Corrections, Additions, and/or Deletions to: L. Greg Lisle L.G.Lisle@ieee.org These firms are primarily software, systems and support FirmWorks; Mitch Bradley; 415 917-0100 480 San Antonio Rd, Ste 115; Mountain View; CA 94040; USA Open Firmware, ForthMon, Forthmacs; info@firmworks.com; fax: 415 917-6990 Specialists in IEEE Std 1275 Boot Firmware Forth Interest Group; John D. Hall; 510 893-6784 PO Box 2154; Oakland; CA 94621; USA " "; fig@taygeta.com; fax: 510 535-1295 Literature & Software Source FORTH, Inc; Elizabeth Rather; 800 553-6784 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Ste 300 ; Manhattan Beach; CA 90266; USA polyFORTH ; ERATHER@forth.com; fax: 310 318-7130 Other services include 5-day courses in introductory and FORTH, Inc; Steve Agarwal; 800 553-6784 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Ste 300 ; Manhattan Beach; CA 90266; USA chipFORTH; SAGARWAL@forth.com; fax: 310 318-7130 More than 9 cross-development targets Laboratory Microsystems, Inc. (LMI); Ray Duncan; 310 306-7412 PO Box 10430, Marina del Rey, CA 90295 ; Los Angeles; CA 90066; USA UR/FORTH (16-bit), 80386 UR/FORTH (32-bit), WinForth, LMI ; duncan@nic.cerf.net; fax: 310 301-0761 WinForth, LMI Forth-83 Metacompiler MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd.; Stephen Pelc; +44 1703 631441 133 Hill Lane ; Southampton; -- SO15 5AF ; England PowerForth, ProForth ; sales@mpeltd.demon.co.uk; fax: +44 1703 339691 Large range of cross compilers Miller Microcomputer Services; A. Richard Miller; 508 653-6136 61 Lake Shore Road ; Natick; MA 01760-2099 ; USA MMSFORTH ; dmiller@im.lcs.mit.edu; fax: MMSFORTH and many application modules are available in native Mountain View Press, Division of Epsilon Lyra, Inc.; Glen Haydon; 415 747-0760 Star Rt 2 Box 429; La Honda; CA 94020-9726 ; USA MVP Forth (which I wrote)and other public domain ; ghaydon@forsythe.stanford.edu; fax: 415 747 0760 Ext 3 Literature & Software MP7; Marc Petremann; (33) 1 43 03 40 36 17, allee de la Noiseraie; F - 93160 NOISY LE GRAND; ; France Turbo-Forth; 100647.3306@compuserve.com; fax: Offete Enterprises, Inc.; C.H. Ting; 415 574-8250 1306 South B St.; San Mateo; CA 94402; USA eFORTH,F83&; tingch@ccmail.apldbio.com; fax: 415 571-5004 Books & Software for figForth, F83, FPC etc These Firms are primarily hardware vendors Ampro Computers Inc.; ; 408 522-4825 990 Almanor Ave.; Sunnyvale; CA 94086; USA " "; techsupport@ampro.com; fax: 408 720-1305 SBC Inovative Integration; James Henderson; 818 865-6150 31352 Via Colinas #101; Westlake Village; CA 91362; USA ; ; fax: 818 879-1770 TMS320C31, C32, C25, C44 Mosaic Industries, Inc; Patrick Campbell; 510 790-1255 5437 Central Ave Ste 1; Newark; CA 94560; USA " "; ; fax: 510 790-0925 QED SBC Saelig Company; Alan Lowne; 716 425-3753 1193 Moseley Rd.; Victor; NY 14564; USA " "; 71042.17@compuserve.com; fax: 716 425-3835 Rep for Triangle Data Svs Silicon Composers Inc.; George Nicol; 415 961-8778 655 W. Evelyn Ave. #7; Mountain View; CA 94041; USA " "; ; fax: 415 961-6778 RTX 2000 & SC32 boards Triangle Digital Services Ltd.; Peter Rush; +44-181-539-0285 223 Lea Bridge Road; London; UK E1O 7NE; England TDS2020 &; 100065.75@COMPUSERVE.COM; fax: +44-181-558-8110 SBC w/ on board Forth Vesta Technology, Inc; Cyndi Reish; 303 422-8088 7100 W. 44th Ave Ste 101; Wheat Ridge; CO 80033; USA Forth-83+; ; fax: 303 422-9800 SBC w/ Forth in ROM These Firms are primarily custom consulting 4th Wave Computers Ltd.; Peter Caven; 905 335-6844 2314 Cavendish Drive ; Burlington; ON L7P 3P3; Canada " "; p.caven@ieee.org; fax: Custom SW Development in Forth & C A Working Hypothesis, Inc; Paul Frenger; 713 293-9484 PO Box 820506; Houston; TX 77282; USA " "; 70410.1173@Compuserve.com; fax: AM Research; Albert Mitchell; 800 949-8051 4600 Hidden Oaks Lane; Loomis; CA 95650-9479; USA " "; sofia@netcom.com; fax: 916 652-6642 8051, 6811 & 80C166 Forth Dev Systems Bernd Paysan; Bernd Paysan; ++49 89 798557 Stockmannstr. 14 ; 81477 Muenchen; FRG ; Germany BigForth ; paysan@informatik.tu-muenchen.de; fax: ++49 89 794378 Object Oriented Blue Star Systems; Mike Warot; PO Box 4043; Hammond; IN 46324; USA Forth/2 ; ka9dgx@interaccess.com; fax: A direct threaded implementation of forth for OS/2 text mode, 32 bit Compucyber, Inc.; Boris Bibershtein; 416 733-1630 PO Box 3182; North York; ON M2M 3A6; Canada DOS; ; fax: both F-PC and LMI Forth Delta Research; Phil Burk; 415 453-4320 PO Box 151051; San Rafael; CA 94915; USA JForth ; phil@3do.edu; fax: JForth is a subroutine thread Forth for Amiga. Frank Sergeant; Frank C. Sergeant; 809 W. San Antonio St. ; San Marcos; TX 78666; USA Pygmy ; sergeant@axiom.net; fax: I am recommending and/or using Pygmy or one of my specialized Frog Peak Music; Larry Polansky; 603 448-8837 PO Box A36 ; Hanover; NH 03755; USA HMSL - Hierarchical Music Specification Language ; phil@3do.edu; fax: HMSL is a set of music related Forth extensions based on L Squared Electronics; L. G. Lisle; 910 924-0629 2160 Foxhunter Ct.; Winston-Salem; NC 27106; USA Pygtools, Pygmy; L.SQUARED@GEnie.com; fax: Engineering consulting using Forth for industry Michael Hore; Michael Hore; +61-2-557-5836 54 Frederick St ; Sydenham; NSW 02044; Australia Mops ; mikeh@zeta.org.au; fax: Mops is a PD OOP system Redshift Limited; Charlie Springer; 206 564-3315 726 No. Locust Lane; Tacoma; WA 98406; USA " "; RedForth@AOL.com; fax: A simple 32 bit indirect threaded Forth for ARM Rob Chapman; Rob Chapman; 403 430-2605 11120-178 st.; Edmonton; AB T5S 1P2; Canada botKernel, Timbre; rob@idacom.hp.com; fax: 403 430-2772 Science Applications International Corp.; Norman Smith; 615 482-9031 301 Laboratory Road ; Oak Ridge; TN 37831; USA Until, LMI, Uniforth ; smithn@orvb.saic.com; fax: 615 482-6828 Write Your Own Programming Lang. w/ C++ T-Recursive Technology; B.J. Rodriguez; 905 308-3698 221 King St. East, Suite 32 ; Hamilton; ON L8N 1B5 ; Canada ; BJ@headwaters.com; fax: 519 986-4266 Contract programming & hardware design for small/embedded systems TOS Systems Inc.; Roger Stern; 617 431-2456 PO Box 81-128; Wellesley; MA 02181; USA LMI; rstern@world.std.com; fax: 617 431-2456 Software & Hardware Consulting Transport Control Technology Ltd.; Paul Bennett; +44 (0) 117-9499861 7 Broadfield Ave, Kingswood; Bristol; BS15 1HX; UK " "; enquiry@transcontech.co.uk; fax: Company Emphasizes Safety Critical Systems Ultra Technology; Jeff Fox; 510 848-2149 2510 10th St.; Berkekey; CA 94710; USA P21Forth ; jfox@netcom.com; fax: I do consulting on systems besides MuP21 and F21, From: cjakeman@apvpeter.demon.co.uk Subject: comp.lang.forth FAQ: books (5 Mar 1996), part 5/6 Date: 8 Mar 1996 02:03:59 GMT Message-ID: <4ho4if$8h2@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Reply-To: cjakeman@apvpeter.demon.co.uk Archive-name: forth/FAQ/books Comp-lang-forth-archive-name: books-faq Last-modified: 5 Mar 1996 Version: 1.01 Posting-Frequency: monthly comp.lang.forth Frequently Asked Questions, part 5 of 6 Books, Periodicals, and Tutorials Chris Jakeman, 5 Mar 1996 Please send your changes, comments or suggestions to me at cjakeman@apvpeter.demon.co.uk. [This FAQ is under construction - input solicited!] ------------------------------ Subject: Table of Contents [1] Periodicals [2] Standards Documents [3] Books - Organisation [4] Books - Tutorial [5] Books - Advanced [6] Books - Related [7] Suppliers ------------------------------ Subject: [1] Periodicals Forth Dimensions (ISSN 0884-0822) Published 6 issues/year to members; Marlin Ouverson, editor . Subscriptions are US$40/year (before March 1, 1996), plus US$15/year for foreign subscriptions. Forth Interest Group, P.O. Box 2154, Oakland, CA 94621 USA, 'phone 510-893-6784, fax 510-535-1295. Advertising sales: 'phone 805-946-2272. Brad Rodriguez writes: Forth Dimensions is the official publication of the Forth Interest Group, and is probably the foremost journal devoted exclusively to the Forth language. It is in its 17th year of publication. FORML and euroForth Conference Proceedings Published annually by FIG at $40; Robert Reiling, director . FORML is an educational forum for sharing and discussing new or unproved proposals intended to benefit Forth. The first conference was held in 1980 and euroForth conferences began in 1992. Rochester Forth Conference Published annually by the Institute for Applied Research at $25 to $35 (depending on year); Larry Forsley, director . The conference covers all topics of Forth implementation and application. Conferences began in 1981. Does anyone have information about: - conferences in Australia, China etc.? - "More on Forth Engines" Dr.C.H.Ting, Editor? Journal of Forth Application and Research (ISSN 0738-2022) Published nominally 4 issues/year; Len Zettel, editor . Journal of Forth Application and Research, 70 Elmwood Avenue, Rochester, NY 14611 USA, telephone 716-235-0168. Brad Rodriguez writes: JFAR is the only peer-reviewed Forth journal. It is currently being revived after a long hiatus; the last issue was published in 1994. Len Zettel has assumed the post of editor, and is soliciting contributions to the Journal. The Computer Journal Published 6 issues/year; Dave Baldwin, editor . Subscriptions are US$24/year in U.S., US$34/year Canada/Mexico (air mail), US$44/year foreign (air mail). The Computer Journal, P.O. Box 3900, Citrus Heights, CA 95611-3900 USA, telephone 916-722-4970, fax 916-722-7480, email tcj@psyber.com, . Brad Rodriguez writes: The Computer Journal is not a Forth magazine; it is devoted to "classic", small, and non-mainstream computers. It frequently carries articles about the Forth language. Some national FIG groups publish their own periodicals, eg FIG UK. See the FAQ: groups - part 6/6 for details. ------------------------------ Subject: [2] Standards Documents For details of the Forth standards see the FAQ: general - part 1/6. Published standards since 1978 are Forth 79 and Forth 83 from the Forth Standards Team, and ANS Forth - document X3.215-1994 - by the X3J14 Technical Committee. The most recent standard, ANS Forth, defines a set of core words and some optional extensions and takes care to allow great freedom in how these words are implemented. The range of hardware which can support an ANS Forth Standard System is wider than any previous Forth standard and probably wider than any programming language standard ever. The document includes 90 pages of annexes, providing an insight into the decisions which had to be taken in drafting ANS Forth. Copies of the standard cost $193 from the American National Standards Institute Sales Department (212) 642-4900, but the final draft of ANS Forth is free and available (subject to copyright restrictions) at ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/x3j14/dpans94.zip (Word For Windows, v2) ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/x3j14/dpans94.hqx (Word For Macintosh) ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Literature/dpans94.asc (plain ASCII) ------------------------------ Subject: [3] Books - Organisation There is not space here to provide an exhaustive list of Forth publications. Instead this is a guide to those items which Forth users have found most helpful. If you have been especially helped by a book not listed, please ask for it to be added. Where publications are not widely available, a supplier is listed. Approximate prices are given as a guide. ------------------------------ Subject: [4] Books - Tutorial "Starting FORTH: an introduction to the FORTH language and operating system for beginners and professionals" Leo Brodie, Prentice Hall 1981 (2nd Ed., 1987), 346 pages, ISBN 0-13-842922-7, price $29. Chris Jakeman writes: This is the classic introduction to Forth, with helpful cartoons, exercises and solutions. See also Brodie's "Thinking Forth" below. "The Forth Course" Richard Haskell, 156 pages with disk, price $25, supplier FIG. FIG writes: This set of 11 lessons is designed to make it easy for you to learn Forth. The material was developed over several years of teaching Forth as part of a senior/graduate course in desing of embedded software computer systems at Oakland Univeristy in Rochester, Michigan. "Forth Applications In Engineering And Industry" John Matthews, Ellis Horwood, 1989 ISBN 0-85312-659-3, price UKP35. Currently out of print, this book may be available from libraries. MPE Ltd. writes: If you are starting out in the field of real-time control of hardware using Forth, then this book is for you! This test covers most aspects of real-time control under Forth, from the very basics of what Forth is, through to control loops and digital implementations of analogue filters. "Embedded Controller FORTH for the 8051 family" William H. Payne, Academic Press, 1990, 511 pages with DOS disks, ISBN 0125475705, price $72 book, $20 disk. J. Fulcher, Computing Reviews, 9105-0316 writes: ... This hobbyist-style book goes into considerable detail regarding the implementation of FORTH on the i8051 family of microcontrollers (down to circuit diagrams, PCB layouts, and wire-wrap board schematics) ... Almost two-thirds of this book is devoted to appendices -- 19 in all. These primarily contain code listings ... Paul Frenger, SIGFORTH, 2(4):31-32, 1990 reviews the book and gives it 10/10. Notes that the book contains everything you need: all the source is there as well as all the circuit diagrams. There are 19 appendices, which make up half of the book, and contain things like: the source to the 8086 Forth, 8051 Forth, full screen editor code, 8051 disassembler code, Nautilus metacompiler, 8086/8051 meta-assemblers, Forth decompilers and much more. See also the FAQ: on-line - part 2/6, for tutorials and Forth systems to try them on. ------------------------------ Subject: [5] Books - Advanced "Scientific FORTH: a modern language for scientific computing" Julian V. Noble, Mechum Banks Publishing, 19??, 300 pages, ISBN 0-9632775-0-2, price $50. Julian V. Noble writes: While not intended for the Forth novice, Scientific FORTH contains a good many serious examples of Forth programming style, useful programs, as well as innovations intended to simplify number crunching in Forth. It can now be found in the libraries of several major universities (e.g. Yale, U. of Chicago and Rockefeller U.) and government and industrial laboratories (e.g. Fermilab and Motorola). It comes with a disk containing all the programs discussed in the book. An update file has recently been posted to GEnie/FIG. "Thinking FORTH" Leo Brodie, Prentice Hall, 1984, ??? pages, ISBN: 0-13-917576-8 and 0-13-917568-7 (pbk.), price $20. Dick Miller writes: This is a top-notch book on strategy, and always was our [MMS] top recommendation for the SECOND book, after you bought a textbook to learn the Forth words. This one teaches you which ones to select when, how to hone your habits for better Forth (and other) programming, etc. It's been unavailable for a year or two, and has been reprinted at last! MMS has worked to reduce its price from a proposed $40 (in paperback), and is pleased to offer it at $19.95. "Forth: The Next Step" Ron Geere, Addison-Wesley, 1986, ??? pages, ISBN 0-201-18050-2, price ??. Stephen J. Bevan writes: As the title might suggest, this is not for the complete beginner. It is aimed at those who have mastered the idea of reverse polish ... etc. and now want to do something a bit more complicated. Covers areas like: using double length numbers, formatting, reading/writing values from/to a port and `infinite' precision integers. "Object-oriented Forth - Implementation of Data Structures" Dick Pountain Academic Press, 1987, 108 pages, ISBN 0-12-563570-2, price $35. Chris Jakeman writes: Pountain is a Byte contributing editor. His "book sets out to develop systematic ways of constructing complex data structures in Forth ... with a few easy to use syntax extensions to the language." Efficient techniques for records and arrays are presented and refined with great clarity. Objects are built from these by adding methods with a small change to the dictionary structure. The techniques are demonstrated using lists, a heap and a dynamic simulation of queuing at the bank. "Forth: The New Model - A Programmer's Handbook" Jack Woehr, M&T Publishing, 1992, 315 pages, ISBN: 0-13-036328-6, DOS disk included, price $45. Describes features of ANS Forth and how to use it to write portable Forth programs. Published 2 years before the Standard was approved, it predicts the Standard very closely. Currently the only book about ANS Forth. Ong Hian Leong writes: The author is (as at time of print) VP of Forth Interest Group and member of X3J14, so he presumably knows what he's talking about. 8-) ----------------------------- Subject: [6] Books - Related "The Evolution Of FORTH - An Unusual Language" C.H.Moore, Byte, Aug. 1980. Forth's history by its creator. "The Evolution of Forth" E.D.Rather, D.R.Colburn, C.H.Moore, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 28, No.3 March 1993, 46 pages. An larger and more recent history of Forth by the early pioneers. This is also available on the Forth Inc. home page at http://home.earthlink.net/~forth "Stack Computers: The New Wave" Phillip Koopman, John Wiley & Sons, 1989, ISBN 0-470-21467-8, price $82. Stephen J. Bevan writes: This isn't a book about Forth, rather it is about computers that potentially execute Forth very efficiently. The book contains a detailed overview of a number of Forth chips as well as a potted history of what seems to be every stack based computer ever designed. Paul Frenger, SIGFORTH, 1(3):28-29, 1989 writes: Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who programs in Forth or any other high level language of whatever variety, or who is interested in the hardware details of Forth engines or the pitfalls of conventional CPU design. "Write Your Own Programming Language Using C++" Norman Smith, Wordware Publishing, Plano, Texas. 108 pages, DOS disk included, ISBN 1-55622-264-5, price: $15. Norman E. Smith writes: This book presents a minimal Forth implementation called Until, for UNconventional Threaded Interpretive Language. Until is designed to be used as a macro language embedded in other applications. It can both call and be called by other C functions. Chris Jakeman writes: Continued development has enhanced Until since this publication. For details of the latest public version, see FAQ: system - part 4/6. ------------------------------ Subject: [7] Suppliers Brad Rodriguez writes: Most of these books and conference proceedings are available from the Forth Interest Group, P.O. Box 2154, Oakland, CA 94621 USA, telephone 510-893-6784, fax 510-535-1295. Other suppliers include: FORTH Inc. - email to forthsales@forth.com Miller Microcomputer Services (MMS) - email to dmiller@im.lcs.mit.edu Mountain View Press (MVP) - email to ?? Box 429, Star Route 2 La Honda, CA 94020 and, in the UK, MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd.(MPE) - email to mpe@mpeltd.demon.co.uk Why not call them for a complete list of their Forth publications? From: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Message-ID: References: <4h1jdg$84d@news.bellglobal.com> Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 12:40:09 GMT Brad Rodriguez (bj@headwaters.com) wrote: > >No offense, Stephen, but this is one feature of your otherwise excellent >compiler that I frequently have to bypass. E.g. in my latest application >I cross-compile a Forth kernel with a few K worth of network buffers. If >I use your VARIABLE and ALLOT-RAM the compiler will attempt to add a few >K of (unneeded!) initialization data to the ROM image. So I wind up >writing XVARIABLE and XALLOT, managing another dictionary pointer, >writing compatibility packages for my non-cross-compiled code, etc. > >For my embedded applications I would greatly prefer that the compiler >_not_ initialize the RAM variables. I second Elizabeth's list, and I can >add one more reason: some embedded systems (e.g. lighting control >consoles!) hold variables in nonvolatile RAM, which must remain >_undisturbed_ through a power failure and processor reset. (Fortunately >it's very easy to skip the "initialize RAM" step in the MPE Forth >kernel...but the compiler still generates the ROM table.) What you write makes very much sense but: Here we are arguing about concepts. The uninitialized VARIABLEs and their uniqueness among other constructs like CREATE ... DOES> -ed data disturbs the consistency of the language. I consider your solution with managing a separate space for unitialized varables a very good one. Indeed it would have been a better choice to define VARIABLE with the stack effect ( value -- ) and provide a separate set of words which manage another data space, in the standard. Here I do not want to argue whether or not that VARIABLE would be more useful than the existing one. I just want to say that that would simplify the understanding of the language (All user-level words which grap some data space in the dictionary initialize it.). Andras From: Tom Zimmer Subject: Re: Forth in a PLD? Date: Fri, 08 Mar 1996 07:25:54 +0000 Message-ID: <313FE102.580E@ix.netcom.com> References: <826124505snz@tcontec.demon.co.uk> <4ho1uv$79a@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-NETCOM-Date: Fri Mar 08 5:18:46 AM PST 1996 X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Brad Rodriguez wrote: > > John Rible did a semi-custom LSI chip that used > something like 1650 gates (not sure about the exact number). Both > were 16-bit processors. I believe John's QS2 was an 8bit processor, and I wish more people would consider working with 8bit Forths on micro-controllers, they run so much more efficiently. Tom Zimmer From: lglisle@aol.com (LgLisle) Subject: Re: The nature of Forth Programmers Date: 8 Mar 1996 08:59:20 -0500 Message-ID: <4hpefo$46i@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <4h9k44$5gt@news.bellglobal.com> In article <4h9k44$5gt@news.bellglobal.com>, Brad Rodriguez writes: >"Trust" is a much more difficult problem. FIG doesn't recommend, >investigate, certify, or vouch for these programmers in any way. It's >like placing an ad in the newspaper -- the employer still has to filter >the responses. Brad (and the rest of the board), Thanks for the efforts that that you all are making in helping improve the employment situation. I would observe that there have been suggestions that FIG or some other group provide some form of certification. As I think about it, this sounds good in theory, but there could be some nasty liability issues to be addressed. I also appreciate the comments of J.V.Noble: > As someone who has licensed software and been > stiffed by people who knew it was not worth my while to sue them > inter-state, I well appreciate that the element of trust is crucial. > However, total trust is not necessary--the client puts up a performance > bond, with "performance according to spec" being judged by a third > party. This is quite standard international contracting practice. Does anyone else with experience in this area have additional suggestions on ways to help build trust? Could we get more details on how performance bonds are established? Could we build a registry of available programmers, both contract and off-site consultants, at fig.com? L. Greg Lisle, PE Forth Toolsmith | L.G.Lisle@ieee.org From: aph@atml.co.uk (Andrew Haley) Subject: Re: Forth for UT69R000 (UT1750) Date: 8 Mar 1996 10:54:06 GMT Message-ID: <4hp3ke$nir@gatekeeper.atml.co.uk> References: Jay T. Miller (nnjtm@vx730.gsfc.nasa.gov) wrote: : We're using the UT69R000 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and are curious : if there are any Forth systems available. We're planning to port Dr. Ting's : E-Forth but would prefer a canned solution if one is available. If the UT1750 is a MIL-STD-1750A compatible processor, I've already got a Forth system for it. It was done as a special job for a British spacecraft manufacturer a few years ago, but we're free to sell it to other customers. I'll be glad to pass your enquiry on to someone who can give you the full details. Andrew. From: lglisle@aol.com (LgLisle) Subject: Re: Forth in a PLD? Date: 8 Mar 1996 08:55:32 -0500 Message-ID: <4hpe8k$44n@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <4ho1uv$79a@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Brad, Try: jrible@cruzio.com John Rible L. Greg Lisle, PE Forth Toolsmith | L.G.Lisle@ieee.org From: wilbaden@netcom.com (W.Baden) Subject: Re: Readable-Forth Rules Message-ID: References: <4evfv1$27k@cloner3.netcom.com> <4fdkrn$k04@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <4hod01$49b@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 14:54:58 GMT (Oops. I now see that my apology for an abnormality could be taken as a declaration of general principle. Sorry.) William Tanksley (wtanksle@sdcc15.ucsd.edu) wrote: > I've long been puzzled by the apperent contradiction between > your nice Forth and your deprecation of factoring. I do not deprecate factoring. In fact I believe in factoring for the sake of factoring. It's a matter of structure and flow. I **always** factor. Factoring can be out-of-line by abstracting and naming a package, or in-line by phrasing, line-spacing, and indenting. The Rule is: Never bite off more than you can chew. Another rule is: There are no rules -- only style-guides. :-) -- Procedamus in pace. Wil Baden Costa Mesa, California From: John Dunn Subject: raster file load & save? Date: 8 Mar 1996 16:14:55 GMT Message-ID: <4hpmdv$m3s@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.22 (Windows; I; 32bit) Does anyone have/know of a raster file load/save routine in Forth? PCX, GIF, BMP, whatever? ------------------------------------------------------------ John Dunn, Research Fellow University of Michigan School of Art e-mail: johndunn@umich.edu Software Tools for Artists e-mail: stfa@webcom.com home page: http://www.webcom.com/~stfa/ From: anton@a0.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) Subject: Re: TRUE 1 AND yields? Date: 8 Mar 1996 16:55:28 GMT Message-ID: <4hpoq0$mut@news.tuwien.ac.at> References: <4ai4ob$kpu@useneta1.news.prodigy.com> <3111EDD9.6C4B@paisley.ac.uk> <4ga99q$j2g@news.tuwien.ac.at> <312B8EB8.17A2@paisley.ac.uk> <4gml9s$827@gaia.ns.utk.edu> <3132E3AC.450B@paisley.ac.uk> <3133A381.79B12735@informatik.tu-muenchen.de> ANS Forth defines the bit patterns for all positive signed numbers and (I think) for all unsigned numbers. Therefore bitwise operations (AND, OR, XOR, INVERT) involving these numbers have a defined result. E.g., we can test _portably_ for evenness of unsigned numbers with : even? ( u -- f ) 1 AND 0= ; I hope that designers of typechecking rules for Forth take this into consideration. - anton -- M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html From: h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Message-ID: References: Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 16:43:20 GMT Zsoter Andras (h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk) wrote: > > What you write makes very much sense but: >Here we are arguing about concepts. The uninitialized VARIABLEs and their >uniqueness among other constructs like CREATE ... DOES> -ed data disturbs >the consistency of the language. I consider your solution with >managing a separate space for unitialized varables a very good one. >Indeed it would have been a better choice to define VARIABLE with >the stack effect ( value -- ) and provide a separate set of words >which manage another data space, in the standard. >Here I do not want to argue whether or not that VARIABLE would be >more useful than the existing one. I just want to say that that would >simplify the understanding of the language (All user-level words >which grap some data space in the dictionary initialize it.). It just came into my mind after the post that in the old day (when I first heared about FORTH but I did not use it by that time) there was a defining word USER what did something similar to the above behavior. What happened to it? Andras From: znmeb@teleport.com () Subject: Re: Forth and AI Date: 8 Mar 1996 17:15:24 GMT Message-ID: <4hppvc$87c@nadine.teleport.com> References: Zsoter Andras (h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk) wrote: : Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. : I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. : Any pointers or references are welcome! : Andras If you can find it, try "Designing and Programming Personal Expert Systems" by Carl Townsend and Dennis Feucht. Published in 1986 by Tab Books, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214 -- ISBN is 0-8306-2692-1. At one time, you could buy a floppy disk with the Forth code from the book and an old version of Laxen-Perry F83. I long ago lost the disk; I don't know if Tab still sells the book or the disk. All the source is printed in the book, though. The algorithms described in the book include LISP and Prolog emulation in Forth and a number of AI demos originally implemented in LISP and Prolog. If Tab no longer publishes this book, maybe FIG or the Millers would pick it up and republish it -- it's worth doing. Or some contemporary Forthist could rewrite it around ANS Forth. -- znmeb@teleport.com (M. Edward Borasky) http://www.teleport.com/~znmeb The American people are tired of being told what the American people are tired of. From: anton@a0.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) Subject: Re: Forth and AI Date: 8 Mar 1996 17:36:12 GMT Message-ID: <4hpr6c$mut@news.tuwien.ac.at> References: In article , h9290246@hkuxa.hku.hk (Zsoter Andras) writes: |> Does anybody use Forth for AI or is anybody aware of any such usage. |> I mean expert systems, pattern recognition, machine vision and the like. There is an expert system shell called (I think) FORPS, after OPS-5. There were some articles in JFAR about it. - anton -- M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html From: anton@a0.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) Subject: Re: pfe-0.9.11 Date: 8 Mar 1996 17:59:28 GMT Message-ID: <4hpsi0$4c3@news.tuwien.ac.at> References: <199603031054.KAA00655@squiggle.demon.co.uk> To: Ian Jones In article <199603031054.KAA00655@squiggle.demon.co.uk>, Ian Jones writes: |> Does anyone have some documentation on pfe? I haven't been able |> to get the help facility to work. And it took me ages to figure |> out that you have to type WORDS instead of VLIST. Is 0.9.11 the |> latest version? AFAIK 0.9.14 is the latest version. You can find it through http://www.taygeta.com/forth.html. There you can also find the Forth standard (in its draft proposal incarnation) in various formats, which is currently the main documentation for pfe. We have had WORDS since Forth-83 (or F83?). I was also somewhat disconcerted when I met my first Forth system without VLIST. Maybe I'll add it to GForth. |> (p.s. pfe running on slackware linux 3.0). You may also be interested in GForth (http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth-0.1beta.tar.gz). - anton -- M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html From: ouversonm@aol.com (OuversonM) Subject: Re: Forth Programmers Date: 8 Mar 1996 14:05:07 -0500 Message-ID: <4hq0d3$9gb@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <4hnj24$kvk@news.hal.com> Reply-To: ouversonm@aol.com (OuversonM) Dwight said, >The main thing when doing these things is to remember that >many of these things take some time to get effects rolling. Yes. For example, I did a magazine re-design/re-focus _way_ back in the early days of microcomputing. It was very successful, but the bulk of the positive results didn't show up for 12 - 18 months. Both organizations and targeted markets have a kind of inertia. From: ouversonm@aol.com (OuversonM) Subject: Re: How do I "forget" entire dictionaries? Date: 8 Mar 1996 14:06:24 -0500 Message-ID: <4hq0fg$9hk@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <4hhlg3$hfo@news.asu.edu> Reply-To: ouversonm@aol.com (OuversonM) >There was an article in Volume IX, number 5 of Forth Demensions >entitled Module Management [snipped] Volume IX and many other back issues are still in print and available from the Forth Interest Group: You can contact FIG at: Forth Interest Group P.O. Box 2154 Oakland, California 94621 telephone: 510-893-6784 fax: 510-535-1295 e-mail: johnhall@aol.com From: ouversonm@aol.com (OuversonM) Subject: Re: Forth and AI Date: 8 Mar 1996 14:06:32 -0500 Message-ID: <4hq0fo$9hm@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <4hppvc$87c@nadine.teleport.com> Reply-To: ouversonm@aol.com (OuversonM) >Several articles on expert systems and neural nets have >been published in past issues of FD and FORML proceedings. Work continues to be done in the field... evidently so much that it's originators have little time to write about it ;-). Steve Roberts' MicroShip voyages are accomplished with the help of Forth-based neural nets, and he promises to write about them for Forth Dimensions. --Marlin Ouverson, Editor --Forth Dimensions From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: Emb. Syst. Programming rediscovers Forth? Date: 8 Mar 1996 19:14:53 GMT Message-ID: <4hq0vd$4k7@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: <313FC200.64CA@tir.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) X-URL: news:313FC200.64CA@tir.com mlosh@tir.com wrote: >As I read Daniel Pettyjohn's article "Programming for Change: How to >Handle the Software Crisis" in the March 1996 issue of _Embedded >Systems Programming_, I was struck by how much the author's techniques >duplicated (in C) functionality commonly found in Forth... With a very little editing, this message would be a great "letter to the editor" to ESP. Mike, I encourage you to send it in! They accept email; check the front of the magazine for the appropriate address. Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: What is Tyler Sperry's point about Harris RTX? Date: 8 Mar 1996 19:17:51 GMT Message-ID: <4hq14v$4k7@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: <313FC25C.2A79@tir.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) X-URL: news:313FC25C.2A79@tir.com mlosh@tir.com wrote: >In the "Real-Time" column of March's _Embedded Systems Programming_, >Tyler says "I can think of some CPU designs that have deserved to die >--a few several times over." Then he goes on to describe the history >of the Harris RTX, and compares it to the announced end of the AMD 29K >line. > >These two processors do not seem very comparable in basic architecture >or application. So what is his point on the RTX? He praises some of >its capabilities. Is it one of the CPUs that "deserved to die" >because of its high price and lack of familiar (C language) development >tools? Or are there other CPUs that deserve to die even more than the >RTX and the 29K based on technical qualities important to progammers/ >engineers, yet do not because of things important to businessmen such >as price or availability? Yet another great question; in this case, I happen to know Tyler's email address, tyler@netcom.com. Magazines love to carry on this kind of dialog with their readers, and it never hurts to remind them that Forth is still alive! Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ From: znmeb@teleport.com () Subject: Re: The nature of Forth Programmers Date: 8 Mar 1996 20:22:38 GMT Message-ID: <4hq4ue$bbc@nadine.teleport.com> References: <825715393snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> Julian V. Noble (jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU) wrote: : This is a different kettle of fish. I was referring to home-grown : All-American Forth programmers working for a domestic client. After : all, I wouldn't wish to offend Pat Buchanan ;-) Why not? He offends *me*! -- znmeb@teleport.com (M. Edward Borasky) http://www.teleport.com/~znmeb The American people are tired of being told what the American people are tired of. From: mhx@IAEhv.nl (Marcel Hendrix) Subject: Writing an operating system Date: 7 Mar 1996 20:14:43 +0100 Message-ID: <4hncj3$7h9@iaehv.IAEhv.nl> Alaric B. Williams writes: Anyone interested in writing an operating system? > Anyone here ever been hit by the urge to write an operating system > from scratch? Well, there are fellow sufferers. > > I would like to form a not-for-profit net group to write a nice tasty > OS for PC compatibles at first. Later, we can port it galore. You would have to say in which way you want it to be different from, for instance, Linux. Also, there is Burgess' book 'Developing your own 32-bit Operating System' (SAMS) that can be used as a stepping stone. I've ported my iForth to the MMURTL OS from that book. MMURTL needs debugging of its taskswitcher and a decent file system with good device drivers for current hardware. It can be done, but it is a lot of work. Why do you think we should do it? -marcel From: jack@purr.demon.co.uk (Jack Campin) Subject: Re: Forth in a PLD? Date: 7 Mar 1996 14:24:38 GMT Message-ID: <858@purr.demon.co.uk> References: <826124505snz@tcontec.demon.co.uk> X-NNTP-Posting-Host: purr.demon.co.uk "Paul E. Bennett" writes: > mj@isy.liu.se "Michael Josefsson" writes: >> An idea springs to mind: How about implementing a complete microprocessor >> in a PLD? The MAX7128 is too small I suppose, but there are PLDs with >> thousands more usable gates. In such a design it would be possible to >> implement Forth as the native language by microcoding Forth instructions. > Charles Johnsen and myself have discussed, at length in phone conversation, > such aspects. This related to embedding a processor in a Gate Array but the > idea is similar enough (when does a PLD become a Gate Array?). [...] This is what I had in mind when I suggested trying to do a Forth chip in Esterel or a similar development environment... > Lets take the idea a little further. Start with a Forth based description > of the logic processes to be performed. Use that software description to > generate the required hardware logic description which could then be used > to programme a gate array or PLD device with the required structure. You may have tools to help with this already, but if not, building the infrastructure to make it work entirely in Forth wouldn't be easy. Chips are parallel, Forth is sequential. A hardware realization of a sequential metacircular interpreter might well give you a correct implementation with little effort, but it wouldn't be a very efficient one. (Shoehorning the chip design into the limits of an insufficiently powerful formalism is what VIPER did, and we know how useful the endproduct of *that* was). (Are such parallel Forth constructs as have been implemented documented somewhere accessible? Are they anywhere near standardization?) A Forth dialect that was capable of being compiled directly into silicon would have to be *way* different from any existing one, to the extent that there might not be much point in calling it the same language. > Finally, using Forth, test the device for compliance with requirements. Forth isn't a requirements specification language. You could do each individual test easily enough, but you need some external formalism to generate the test cases systematically or eliminate them, otherwise your tests achieve nothing really useful. (I'm not saying Forth *ought* to try to be a specification, requirements or test-case-generation language... the world has seen quite enough bloated horrors that try to do everything). You must have more in mind than what you've written here; after all, "using formalism X, test the system for compliance with requirements" isn't a well-defined strategy whether X be Forth, ESTEREL or the Boyer-Moore theorem prover, is it? How do you know *what* to test? (The hardest-to-trace bugs in processor designs are unexpected state-mediated interactions between instructions; showing that these do *not* exist is impossible by testing alone). > Stack Computers can be implemented in surprisingly few gates. The Novix > was only 4000. Depending on what you allocate resource-wise a slight > trimming may be possible. Easily within the capabilities of ESTEREL to synthesize, but far beyond the capability of any exhaustive test procedure to check. You need tests, but you need some theorems too. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Campin jack@purr.demon.co.uk jack@tardis.ed.ac.uk T/L, 2 Haddington Place, Edinburgh EH7 4AE, Scotland (+44) 131 556 5272 -------------------- FERMAN PADiSAHIN, DAGLAR BiZiMDiR -------------------- From: anton@a0.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) Subject: Forth publications Date: 8 Mar 1996 17:43:15 GMT Message-ID: <4hprjj$mut@news.tuwien.ac.at> There have been claims here that there are no academic papers about Forth. A search in "The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies" (http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/index.html) for Forth or FORTH (case-sensitive, partial words match) produced a count of 631 references. While there may be some miscounts (e.g. double hits), I think the situation is not as dire as some people think. - anton -- M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html From: Elizabeth Rather Subject: Re: Forth in a PLD? Date: 8 Mar 1996 19:11:51 GMT Message-ID: <4hq0pn$4k7@chile.it.earthlink.net> References: <826124505snz@tcontec.demon.co.uk> <4ho1uv$79a@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.12(Macintosh; I; 68K) X-URL: news:4ho1uv$79a@church.dcss.McMaster.CA bradford@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) wrote: >Anyone have an email address for John Rible? Yes: jrible@cruzio.com (John Rible) Elizabeth D. Rather FORTH, Inc. Products and services for 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. professional Forth programmers Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 since 1973. See us at: 310-372-8493/fax 318-7130 http://home.earthlink.net/~forth/ From: John Rible Subject: Re: Forth in a PLD? Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 11:56:48 GMT Message-ID: To: jrible@quicksand.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.2 (Windows; U; 16bit) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Nntp-Posting-Host: cruzio38.cruzio.com Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <826124505snz@tcontec.demon.co.uk> "Paul E. Bennett" wrote: >In article mj@isy.liu.se "Michael Josefsson" writes: > >> An idea springs to mind: >> How about implementing a complete microprocessor in a PLD? The MAX7128 is too >> small I suppose, but there are PLDs with thousands more usable gates. In such >> a design it would be possible to implement Forth as the native language by >> microcoding Forth instructions. > >Charles Johnsen and myself have discussed, at length in phone conversation, >such aspects. This related to embedding a processor in a Gate Array but the >idea is similar enough (when does a PLD become a Gate Array?). > >My reason was because I am looking for a much better processor for Safety >Critical Applications. Such a processor will need improvements to hardware >error detection and reporting. > >Lets take the idea a little further. Start with a Forth based description of >the logic processes to be performed. Use that software description to generate >the required hardware logic description which could then be used to programme a >gate array or PLD device with the required structure. Finally, using Forth, >test the device for compliance with requirements. > >Stack Computers can be implemented in surprisingly few gates. The Novix was >only 4000. Depending on what you allocate resource-wise a slight trimming may >be possible. > >Charles Johnsen is at MISC Inc. in Colorado, sadly he is not yet directly on >e-mail. I shall prompt him that such discussion is taking place. > >-- >Paul E. Bennett >peb@transcontech.co.uk >Going Forth Safely At last year's Rochester Conference, papers on at least two such processors were presented: Dave Rusnell's "Using FPGAs to implement custom CPU architectures," and my "16-bit RISC in an FPGA." Rob Chapman (of botForth fame) and Brad Rodriguez (with his PISC - Pitiful Instruction Set Computer) have papers in previous conferences. There was even a panel discussion about the topic. Talk to Larry Forsley for the details. The unique part of my qs2 series of designs is that they incorporate a threaded-code interpreter in hardware that requires NO bits in the machine code instructions--there are two states, just as in traditional threaded Forths, so that execution-tokens and machine code aren't confused. With 8 registers on chip and a cheap (SLOW) alu, it fits in QuickLogic's 16X24 (~4000 gates) and runs at 10MHz with 55ns RAM. I'd like to do it in an SRAM FPGA for student use. -- jrible@quicksand.com QuickSand "hardware, software, and so forth" voice: 408-458-0399 317 California St., Santa Cruz, CA 95060-4215 From: James@moose.co.uk Subject: WTB: Jupiter Ace Date: Sat, 09 Mar 1996 14:35:43 GMT Message-ID: <4hs544$4sl@news.moose.co.uk> Reply-To: James@moose.co.uk Remember this Forth-using blast from the past... I want one!!! "If only I could wander freely thru the BBC Archives armed with Video and Tape Recorders.... Aaahh Damn!" ----- James@Moose.co.uk From: Stephen Pelc Subject: Re: Zero Errors? Date: Sat, 09 Mar 96 14:33:42 GMT Message-ID: <826382022snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> References: <4gkqhr$sol@cloner3.netcom.com> <4gt4h1$bta@argentina.it.earthlink.net> <825415295snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> <4h1jdg$84d@news.bellglobal.com> Reply-To: sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: mpeltd.demon.co.uk In article <4h1jdg$84d@news.bellglobal.com> bj@headwaters.com "Brad Rodriguez" writes: > Stephen Pelc wrote: > >In article <4gt4h1$bta@argentina.it.earthlink.net> > > erather@earthlink.net "Elizabeth Rather" writes: > >> When cross-compiling for embedded environments it is on many systems > >> impossible to initialize target RAM at compile time. Also, when making a > >> turnkey program it is frequently desirable to minimize the size of the > turnkey > >> by including only "code space" rather than uninitialized data space, which > may > >> be quite large. > [snip] > > >In a cross compiled environment, our cross compilers make an image of > >initialised data which is optionally copied into RAM from ROM at power up. > [snip] > > No offense, Stephen, but this is one feature of your otherwise excellent > compiler that I frequently have to bypass. How about a user switch? Let the user choose! -- Stephen Pelc, sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk MicroProcessor Engineering - More Real, Less Time 133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691 From: Stephen Pelc Subject: Re: 32-bit Forth for Win 95? Date: Sat, 09 Mar 96 14:42:20 GMT Message-ID: <826382540snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> References: <4hibv2$gkj@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> <313EFA9A.3B@netcom.com> Reply-To: sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: mpeltd.demon.co.uk In article <313EFA9A.3B@netcom.com> mckewan@netcom.com "Andrew McKewan" writes: > I used ProForth about 2 years ago and it was a very well-done and > well-documented system. It had some bugs that I'm sure have been > fixed by now. Also, they have added a graphical user-interface > designer called GUIDE. I have seed a demo but I have not actually > used it. For Windows 95 (or NT), I think it's the only game in > town. Andrew was using v1.000. The current version is 1.420, which includes GUIDE and many examples. The same binary runs on W3.11, W95, and WNT. One of our clients is generating a commercial application containing over 16,000 words. -- Stephen Pelc, sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk MicroProcessor Engineering - More Real, Less Time 133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691 From: John Dunn Subject: Re: 32-bit Forth for Win 95? Date: 9 Mar 1996 15:30:27 GMT Message-ID: <4hs86j$d7q@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> References: <4hibv2$gkj@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> <313EFA9A.3B@netcom.com> <826382540snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.22 (Windows; I; 32bit) Stephen Pelc wrote: >Andrew was using v1.000. The current version is 1.420, which includes >GUIDE and many examples. The same binary runs on W3.11, W95, and WNT. > >One of our clients is generating a commercial application containing over >16,000 words. How is the speed? Do they use register pointers (two registers) for next and all read/writes, such as WinForth32 does, or do they have single register, direct addressing such as the (very exceptional) LMI UR/Forths do? If UR/Forth was ready now for Win95, it would be a no brainer. Ray Duncan's code is the fastest I know of, and I have been happily using his various Forths for years. But our timeline here requires that we have a 32 bit Forth for Win95 somewhat sooner than "Real Soon Now." ------------------------------------------------------------ John Dunn, Research Fellow University of Michigan School of Art e-mail: johndunn@umich.edu Software Tools for Artists e-mail: stfa@webcom.com home page: http://www.webcom.com/~stfa/ From: Tom Zimmer Subject: Re: Hobbyist looking for SW/FW Forth for IBM Date: Sat, 09 Mar 1996 09:30:22 +0000 Message-ID: <31414FAE.5610@ix.netcom.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-NETCOM-Date: Sat Mar 09 9:22:53 AM CST 1996 X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Bob Slaughter wrote: > > I'm a former FORTH hobbyist looking for a simple version of FORTH that > will run adequately on my 486/33 PC unde4r either DOS or Win3.1. I don't > need a major commercial package. The ones I've found had next to no > documentation as to the version of FORTH they were, or usage of the > extensions they included. I'm still using 2nd edition Brodie "Starting > FORTH" as my reference. I'd like one that handles files rather than > blocks, of course, but other than that my needs are simple. Check at the taygeta archive, it has various forths for the PC including my own F-PC 3.6 of some years ago. F-PC does have a lot of documentation, which is fortunate, since I am no longer supporting it. Get it at; http://www.taygeta.com/forth.html Hope you find what you want, Tom ZImmer From: koopman@cs.cmu.edu (Phil Koopman) Subject: Re: What is Tyler Sperry's point about Harris RTX? Date: Sat, 09 Mar 1996 15:22:07 GMT Message-ID: <314198bb.26635878@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> References: <313FC25C.2A79@tir.com> <4hq14v$4k7@chile.it.earthlink.net> X-NETCOM-Date: Sat Mar 09 7:23:41 AM PST 1996 mlosh@tir.com wrote: >In the "Real-Time" column of March's _Embedded Systems Programming_, >Tyler says "I can think of some CPU designs that have deserved to die >--a few several times over." Then he goes on to describe the history >of the Harris RTX, and compares it to the announced end of the AMD 29K >line. Tyler got it pretty much right about the RTX's death. The facts are: 1) Harris was "printing money" with the 80C286; there were almost no production resources available for the RTX (actually the limit was not wafer fab -- it was tester time, but that's a minor nit). 2) Harris woke up one morning and discovered, if memory serves, that all three of its high volume digital fab development programs were dead ends -- none would make it to sub-micron. (The RTP fab for rad hard was better, but never intended for high-volume jellybean production.) In fact, I was in the office of one of the fab managers when he got told his line was being killed. Since high-volume digital TTL was only ~10%-15% of the newly merged Harris+GE semiconductor, they punted and got out of the digital business entirely. That meant they no longer needed a flagship CPU line and the attendant development costs. That meant that RTX died (there was an attempt to spin it off as a startup with Japanese funding, but it didn't fly). The quality of the architecture itself had little to do with the decision. Elizabeth Rather wrote: >Yet another great question; in this case, I happen to know Tyler's email >address, tyler@netcom.com. Magazines love to carry on this kind of >dialog with their readers, and it never hurts to remind them that Forth >is still alive! By all means send him some e-mail. He's a pretty reasonable fellow. Did you read the very end (the extended signature) of the piece -- where it says he just thinks there's no money in it? If Tyler really didn't care about Forth at all, he just wouldn't mention it. BTW, I first met Tyler at the Rochester Forth conference, so he can't be all bad. -- Phil Phil Koopman -- koopman@cs.cmu.edu -- http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~koopman Date: 09 Mar 1996 12:53:00 +0100 From: joerg.staben@jrgforth.forth-ev.de (Joerg Staben) Message-ID: <64Wm__D-5VB@jrgforth.forth-ev.de> References: <4hpmdv$m3s@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> Subject: Re: BMP file handling X-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Every Windows Forth-System naturally must have a BMP load routine. Of course Win32Forth has also, which You will find in BUTTON.F . I'm sure other vendors of Win-4th systems will point to their code, too. If You like DOS and F-PC, M.Smiley worked on BMP, which You will see when You look at his vga graphics demo. Do You remember the girl in GIRL.SEQ? Ciao Joerg Fotografieren und Forth programmieren ## CrossPoint v3.02 ## Date: 09 Mar 1996 12:48:00 +0200 From: wfuehrer@uni-upn.forth-ev.de (Wolfgang Fuehrer) Message-ID: <64XAJuOFrbB@uni-upn.forth-ev.de> References: <4gi3ff$2nb@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> Subject: Re: Tiny DOS Forth compiler with access to DOS ints? X-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Von: Wolfgang Führer - Sa - 09.03.96 - 12:29 - Hallo Bert! I'm working with a Portfolio (8086) for 2 years. First using UniFORTH (for 1 1/2 year), a really good FORTH83 with assembler, small floatingpoint (6 digits), grahik routines and all other you need. It's also possible to recompile the system with an autostart word and destroy (scramble) the headers. So noone else can manipulate it. I specially like the possibility to work with normal textfiles - so i could use the build in Wordprocessor. In the moment i use Tom Zimmers ZF-FORTH, a F83. I ported it to the Portfolio. I thing it's a littel bit better than UniFORTH - quellcode is available too. ZF-FORTH also works with textfiles. How can you get this things? If you are able to use CompuServe, i send it both - with a lot of my work. CompuServe 100415,3227 or 100415.3227@compuserve.com ~~~ ~~~ -- FORTH and PowerBASIC programming on the Atari-Portfolio ___ _______ __________________________________________________ \ / |__ \/\/olfgang | ührer ( always on the brigth side of live ! ) ## CrossPoint v3.02 ## From: Tom Zimmer Subject: Re: 32-bit Forth for Win 95? Date: Sat, 09 Mar 1996 09:50:00 +0000 Message-ID: <31415448.6145@ix.netcom.com> References: <4hibv2$gkj@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> <313EFA9A.3B@netcom.com> <826382540snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-NETCOM-Date: Sat Mar 09 9:42:31 AM CST 1996 X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Stephen Pelc wrote: > > In article <313EFA9A.3B@netcom.com> mckewan@netcom.com "Andrew McKewan" writes: > > I used ProForth about 2 years ago and it was a very well-done and > > well-documented system. It had some bugs that I'm sure have been > > fixed by now. Also, they have added a graphical user-interface > > designer called GUIDE. I have seed a demo but I have not actually > > used it. For Windows 95 (or NT), I think it's the only game in > > town. > Andrew was using v1.000. The current version is 1.420, which includes > GUIDE and many examples. The same binary runs on W3.11, W95, and WNT. > > One of our clients is generating a commercial application containing over > 16,000 words. I know this is terrible but I can't resist! Win32Forth is currently at version 3.0 soon to be 3.1, which doesn't include GUIDE (unfortunately). The same binary runs on Windows 3.1 (with Win32s), Windows 3.11 (with win32s), OS/2 (with Win32s), Windows95, WindowsNT 3.5, WindowsNT 3.51 and finally WindowsNT 4.0 beta. I am my own client, and my application has only about 14000 words. Tom Zimmer P.S. I hope you can take a joke Stephen. From: arel@sn.no (Are Leistad) Subject: Re: Emb. Syst. Programming rediscovers Forth? Date: Sat, 09 Mar 1996 05:34:15 +0100 Message-ID: <19960309.053415.85@hasle.sn.no> References: <313FC200.64CA@tir.com> <4hq0vd$4k7@chile.it.earthlink.net> Reply-To: arel@sn.no mlosh@tir.com wrote: > As I read Daniel Pettyjohn's article "Programming for Change: How to > Handle the Software Crisis" in the March 1996 issue of _Embedded > Systems Programming_, I was struck by how much the author's techniques > duplicated (in C) functionality commonly found in Forth... Wow - there is actually such a magazine! Please, can you give some details, like the publisher, perhaps an e-mail address or something. Are -- From: regnirps@aol.com (Regnirps) Subject: Re: Emb. Syst. Programming rediscovers Forth? Date: 9 Mar 1996 15:16:50 -0500 Message-ID: <4hsovi$cnj@newsbf02.news.aol.com> References: <19960309.053415.85@hasle.sn.no> Reply-To: regnirps@aol.com (Regnirps) We are going to see lot more of this kind of stuff. For those who have not looked into it, Java is a restricted C++ compiler that produces a token interpreted Forth variant as output. Charlie Springer From: Fred Meyer Subject: Semiconductor Applications Date: Sat, 09 Mar 1996 07:02:18 -0800 Message-ID: <31419D7A.F75@texoma.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win16; I) I learned Friday that AG & Associates have used Forth in their equipment for the semiconductor industry. I am also aware that Nicolet uses Forth in their FTIR equipment. Does anyone know of other equipment suppliers, especially in the semiconductor industry, who use Forth in their systems? Regards, Fred Meyer f3meyer@texoma.com From: jfox@netcom.com (Jeff Fox) Subject: Re: forth engines? Message-ID: Summary: corrections and opinions References: <4h9tnq$nso@wave.rio.com> <4hl369$su8@news.hal.com> Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 20:31:59 GMT In article <4hl369$su8@news.hal.com> elvey@hal.COM (Dwight Elvey) writes: >In article <4h9tnq$nso@wave.rio.com>, rick@rio.rio.com (Robert R. Beaver) writes: >|> >|> :Are there any forth engines still on the the market? >|> :I would like to play around with verious type. And >|> :maybe use them for embedded systems. >|> >|> rick@rio.com >|> > >Hi Rick > As far as I know the RTX2000 is still available from Harris. >Silicon Composers is still selling the SC32? that is a 32 bit Forth >engine. There are a couple of East European NC4000 look-a-likes >but I'm not sure how one would go about getting them. I believe >someone in England or Germany has a Forth engine of some kind. > Last but not least is the chips sold by C Moore and Jeff Fox. >I don't consider these as true Forth engines but a form of >stack processor that can make a fair Forth. Because of their >high instruction throughput these can be effectively used >even though a standard Forth is a little inefficient. >Dwight The only MISC (Minimal Instruction Set Computer) chip available at this time (finished and in production pricing) is the MuP21 (or P21) marketed by Dr. C. H. Ting and available from Offete Enterprises Inc. I have published considerable information about the P21 and many people may have the impression I am selling them. F21(b) is being tested and some prototype chips may be available, but so far I have not been selling anything. Ultra Technology plans to offer both P21 and F21 chips, boards, and software sometime later this year. The MISC mail list mentioned in the FAQ is a good source of information, as is my web site http://www.dnai.com/~jfox Chuck is not actually selling chips either. He is selling his custom chip design services and chip designs. I gave him a page at my web page at http://www.dnai.com/~jfox/cowboys.html for information about his company Computer Cowboys. Now as for the statement that "standard Forth is a little inefficient (on MISC)." I think it deserves some examination. I am not sure exactly what "standard Forth" will mean to different people. Having written P21Forth as one implementation of ANS Forth on the MuP21 I think it clearly demonstrates that there is a big difference between the MuP21 assembler and the ANS implementation using stacks of arbitrary size in memory both in flavor and performance. This implemenation of ANS Forth with stacks in memory (no stack levels cached in registers) does run about 50 times slower than the assembler opcodes, but limiting your Forth to 4 cells on the return stack and 6 cells on the data stack (MuP21 hardware) is not exactly "standard Forth." P21Forth is not an optimizing compiler, and it only has about half of the its code in assembler. However "Standard Forth" or "ANS Forth" source could certainly be compiled with optimizing compilers that could produce much more efficient code on P21. P21 is not the last MISC chip ever to be made. F21 will offer on chip stacks of 18 and 17 cell depths. So straight assembler starts to look more like "standard Forth" and compilation of "standard Forth" to efficient machine code is still possible with an optimzing compiler. Computer Cowboy's MISC chip design menu offers stacks on chip, automatic stack overflow to memory (like shboom1), stacks in memory, separate memory spaces for different stacks, etc. SO I would not agree with a statement that "standard Forth ... on MISC chips." The idea is hardware optimized for whatever design you want. :-) Many people have come to various conclusions about MISC technology based on MuP21 (or even NOVIX) and have really missed the point of what Chuck is doing. Chuck has not revised the menu in years, and today it would include all of the things he has now done on the many chips he has done or is now doing as well as things he has not done but has discussed doing with clients. With HP now offering .5 micron multiple busses with > 100m word/sec access speeds and nanosecond on chip stack access and gigabit on chip i/o coprocessors will be on the menu. Smaller geometry also makes large on chip stacks possible on chips that are still small and cheap to manufacture. I am just pointing out that MuP21's 1.2 micron 6/4 depth stack hardware like Chuck's keyboards has made many people dismiss MISC a little early IMHO. Jeff Fox From: Stephen Pelc Subject: Re: Emb. Syst. Programming rediscovers Forth? Date: Sun, 10 Mar 96 08:40:41 GMT Message-ID: <826447241snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> References: <19960309.053415.85@hasle.sn.no> <4hsovi$cnj@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Reply-To: sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: mpeltd.demon.co.uk In article <4hsovi$cnj@newsbf02.news.aol.com> regnirps@aol.com "Regnirps" writes: > We are going to see lot more of this kind of stuff. For those who have > not looked into it, Java is a restricted C++ compiler that produces a > token interpreted Forth variant as output. I would beg to differ in terminology. The Java virtual machine is for a *single* stack engine with activation records, whereas the classical Forth machine has *two* stacks. However, many of the Java primitive stack operations are the same as the data stack operations in Forth. Our SENDIT project (ESPRIT EP9152) uses a two stack virtual machine for binary portability in embedded systems, and its token set also has many similarities with that of Java. However, the implementation difference is that SENDIT code can be (and is) run on an 8051. See SENDIT at CeBIT. -- Stephen Pelc, sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk MicroProcessor Engineering - More Real, Less Time 133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691 From: Stephen Pelc Subject: Re: 32-bit Forth for Win 95? Date: Sun, 10 Mar 96 08:54:16 GMT Message-ID: <826448056snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> References: <4hibv2$gkj@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> <313EFA9A.3B@netcom.com> <826382540snz@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> <4hs86j$d7q@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> Reply-To: sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mpeltd.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: mpeltd.demon.co.uk In article <4hs86j$d7q@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> johndunn@umich.edu "John Dunn" writes: Re: ProForth for Windows > How is the speed? Do they use register pointers (two registers) for > next and all read/writes, such as WinForth32 does, or do they have > single register, direct addressing such as the (very exceptional) LMI > UR/Forths do? ProForth for Windows uses a direct threaded implementation, top of stack cached in EBX. The speed is fine, in fact its faster than many DOS Forths. Much of the kernel is in assembler - and you get the source code. Speed in a Windows system often has more to do with how you use Windows than anything else, but this is *very* application specific. -- Stephen Pelc, sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk MicroProcessor Engineering - More Real, Less Time 133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England tel: +44 1703 631441, fax: +44 1703 339691 From: rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) Subject: Re: Immediacy in the ANSI standard Date: 10 Mar 1996 10:14:10 GMT Message-ID: <4hua1i$h2h@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <4hemvm$8ma@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <4hfcnj$69n@chile.it.earthlink.net> <4hh46c$sn@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <4hko6a$36h@dfw-ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> In article <4hko6a$36h@dfw-ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>, Jonah Thomas wrote: >In <4hh46c$sn@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> rrt1001@cus.cam.ac.uk (Reuben Thomas) >writes: [snip] >The standard gives no way that a _user_ can make words like that. >Anything you make will have the default compile-time behavior unless >you make it immediate, and then it will execute at compile-time. So >_your_ words must be immediate or else they're not immediate. One of my points is that the standard doesn't even seem to say that words made immediate will be executed at compile time (perhaps that should be, have their compilation semantics made the same as their execution semantics). -- Web page: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rrt1001/