Date: 12/17/87 Time: 22:26EST Attendees: [[Gary] GARY-S] [D.RUFFER] [[Alan F.] ATFURMAN] [[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN] [[leonard] LMORGENSTERN] Minutes: <[Gary] GARY-S> How did Jennifer get turned on ? I just became meeting leader and set everything up <[Gary] GARY-S> Pretty neat - the first clue I had was the Jennifer Marlowe <[Gary] GARY-S> comment one of these days, we should let you do one... the prosses is not too difficult... you get there early, and I'm late almost... you do a /bml to become leader... you can only do it in room (Ithink) 2... then you do a /steno, inviting Jennifer actually she's the only one I've ever seen do it... then you do a /notice to put the meeting notice on the door... the notice is one line, but the line can be about... 250 characters I think... Is anyone else coming that you know of? ga <[Gary] GARY-S> ok <[Gary] GARY-S> None that have said anything to me... <[Gary] GARY-S> I sure hope so.... <[Gary] GARY-S> Did you pick up E-Mail ? ga ok yes I did, and I'm glad to see you got the notes... I wanted to get them out of my office.... I didn't send a note, but thank you very much... for letting me use them... they were useful in establishing the early... time frames. Thank you! ga <[Gary] GARY-S> ok <[Gary] GARY-S> I will be somewhat concerned if we don't generate some traffic <[Gary] GARY-S> here.. is here. <[Gary] GARY-S> tonight. Maybe a bigger announcement or something... hello alan howdy. <[Gary] GARY-S> I am VERY pleased to see CAT 10 taking offf like it is. <[Gary] GARY-S> ga ok sorry for the rude jumping in... just wanted to welcome alan to the bar... yes the standards are picking up steam... ga alan Shouting "standard" in a crowded group of Forthniks... has always been hazardous. At least now,... Fig's finances profit from all the flaming :-) ga ok well you saw the first statement... and we sure are NOT getting rich off it ga gary <[Gary] GARY-S> ok <[Gary] GARY-S> Yes, well I see (not unexpectedly) some... <[Gary] GARY-S> divisions are forming in the one area I see the biggest... <[Gary] GARY-S> decision being madse- cell size ! <[Gary] GARY-S> ga ga alan ok Just a comment: we are well short of critical mass here... in usage in the community.... Somebody go aggravate Larry Forseley again. ga ok well I can't do much more convincing... then I did in November... sigh I could possibly convince some of them to talk... thanx for trying at RTCs, but it will propably have to wait... until Jan. then I will get back to it... So far, as I see it, there is not a lot... of reason to join, except for spending money.... and the billing methods have got a few people pissed off ga alan ok Perhaps propose something really noxious for the standard... How about: GOTOs... WITH LINE NUMBERS HAHAHAHAHA... <[Gary] GARY-S> geeeze !!! and get within epsilon of putting it in the standard... and tell them: "We opened up GEnie for comments... and nobody objected". ga ok thats an interesting idea... actually before I go on vacation... I want to get one written up for... polyForth's DO, and a return to the... dumb LEAVE (which doesn't have to know where to go)... I also have always got MAYBE... as in BEGIN WHILE MAYBE :-) ga alan To my surprise, I grew to like the dumb LEAVE... meaning, waiting till the loop terminates... just as the next version came out with on-the-spot.. jumping to LOOP. ga Is that what you meant? by dumb LEAVE? ga ok yes so did (do) I yes it is!... I like your suggestion tho... to publish these proposals a little more widely... like in F.D. with an invitation for people to join... the discussions on GEnie... I'll have to get them "packaged" into printable form.... Marlin still has trouble doing that. ga alan ok I wonder if anyone outside the users of GEnie and the MCI ... BBS set up for the standard has the foggiest idea that this is.. THE PLACE for discussing the standard. ga ok well the standards TC knows! ga gary <[Gary] GARY-S> ok <[Gary] GARY-S> There is already some areas of controversy... <[Gary] GARY-S> I would think anyone with a vested interest... <[Gary] GARY-S> ie : any programmer would at least care about... <[Gary] GARY-S> the course of the conflicts/standards.ga ok but alan is right... who besides us who are here... really know that this is happening... besides having Marlin publish the proposals.... can you guys think of any other way to advertise? ga well I'll get something out to him tomorrow... ga alan Actually, if I were Joe FD Reader... I would have seen several pages about the MCI bulletin board... and somewhat less space about GEnie... Result: no sense of a central focus... and no knowledge that I can plug into both the standards process... and the community generally in ONE PLACE. the vast difference between being on one system versus having to be on... more than one> ga ok one thing I've had to learn... not everybody shares our view... about how "wonderful" electronic communication is... and even harder still... is convincing them that GEnie is adiquate... you yourself, saw and pointed out the problem... GEnie IS an archaic system, with some strange methods... and a billing system that forces people to have... and pay bills to a credit card... another area of contention.. but I think people are seeing the truth... that GEnie is good enough to get started with ga alan ok I guess what will do it is when people have a sense that they are... MISSING something by not being here... That will occur when things start happening here... The standard will only be the first... I can see math routines, special interest groups, etc. starting... The key is to do things with the attendance such as it is... until the holdouts feel neglected. ga ok and we have to start publishing the stuff... that will at least reach the FIG members... we must accept the fact, however... that for quite some time, we will be a minority ga gary What? Forth users in a minority? <[Gary] GARY-S> ok <[Gary] GARY-S> I agree the key is getting the word out through a best of... <[Gary] GARY-S> in FD ...or at least a overvbiew of activitiesga ok what I meant by minority... is that for some time to come... we will only represent a monority opinion... in the Forth community ga alan Right. What I meant was, if you can't take being in a minority... then let me show you something in any of a number of inferior programming languages. ga right! :-) ga anyone who want to type for a while... my fingers are tired ga is here. <[Gary] GARY-S> ga allan ok When will the bar be open next? ga ok Welcome Dave!... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Lo y'all we are just idely chatting but remember the "protocol"... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Has anybody worked with FORTH under Unix (specifically <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> under a Sun Station) as far as I know... Dave if you want to speak... type !! first, then I will tell you "ga dave"... ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Well, I am working on porting over (and upgrading) Alan <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Pratt's CFORTH <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> And I was wondering if anyone else had worked with it... ga ga alan <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> ok <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Mitch Bradley at SUN has run Forth for years on his <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> workstation... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> with a regular assembler-coded kernel. I believe it is <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> distributed... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> by the SUN users group. ga ok Dave, was the CFORTH your trying to use in our libraries? ga dave is here. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Well, its the same code, but I didn't get it from here... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> the University Sun stations that I have an account on are <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> unable to call out. I had someone look around for the source code. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> ga ok I was just wondering if it works... Mitch is not here yet... and we don't have anyone testing UNIX code yet ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> ok <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> I know the code will not work on the Sun as it is <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> presently written (it seems that it requires short to be 16 bits and ints to be <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> 32, and that is, to the best of my knowledge, not true on the Suns)... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> also, the docs say the model breaks down if the forth is <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> longer than 32k. And finally, it doesn't seem to support vocabularies or <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> the DOES> construct. This is a definite problem. Over winter break 9while <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> unfortunately away from the Suns), I am going to go through the hard copy a <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> nd try and get the upgrades done. ga ok I'd (we all would) appreciate any feed back you can give... also, another reminder about our "protocol"... is to type short lines... otherwise we get "bored".... at least that's what I've heard... :-) ga alan <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Winter break? Where? ga Winter Break????? ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> I'm gonna be in Lake Worth for a few days, and then back <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> in central Georgia. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> And then back here in Austin by the second week in Jan. ga ga alan <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> "Winter break" seems to imply a school. I was curious <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> which one. ga ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> The University of Texas at Austin are you done dave?? <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> ga ga alan <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> ok <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Larry Forsley, the possibility of whose eventually... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> getting on GEnie cannot be wholly ruled out (sigh)... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> supervises some SUN users at the Unersity... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> University of Rochester Laser Lab, and I believe has used <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Mitch... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Bradley's system. He and Mitch are both on Usenet. ga ga lenoard <[leonard] LMORGENSTERN> This was created by my editor while other things were <[leonard] LMORGENSTERN> going on. Just trying it out. I have been late because of conflicts, bu <[leonard] LMORGENSTERN> t I think I can be on time in the future. <[leonard] LMORGENSTERN> Dga ok gald you could make it lenoard! ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Unfortunately UT is notoriously stingy with... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Usenet accounts. In fact, the Suns don't even have ARPAnet <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> or BITnet access. ga ga alan <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> mumble <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> ... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Well, try Mitch or Larry by phone. There's always <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> floppies and magtape. ga <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> P.S. I'll mail Dave their phone #s. ga ga gary <[Gary] GARY-S> ok <[Gary] GARY-S> Copy me Alan, and I'll try Larry again. <[Gary] GARY-S> ga ok well, it's 10:31, does anyone want to continue? ga ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Sure. The attitude around here towards FORTH is rather <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> despicable (at UT that is). Some talk is good. BTW...how many people still <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> use FORTH-79 instead of 83? ga ga alan? <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> I hit ^X to squelch a line... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> and it got wedged... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> until I hit CR and send the null line. Good old GEnie. ga hum has anybody seen my ^Xs tonight? ga <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> No. We missed all the good stuff ;-) ga ok just wondered cause i get this big DELETED. ga <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> One of Nixon's favorit words, wasn't it? ga <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> brb <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> has left. ok anyone REALLY want to continue this? <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Ready to take off ga Good night everyone, and Merry Christmas! thank you for joining us! <[Gary] GARY-S> has left. <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Wait... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Dennis... is here. yes ga alan <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> No bar next 2 weeks? ga ah the schedule... I never did finish it... I'll be putting a message up, but.... there will be no BAR on christmas eve... I'll be out in MASS with my parents... I think they have a modem, but... I'm not goint to schedule anything regular... then there is New Years eve... again, I think I'll still be out there... basically, the next BAR I want to schedule... will, be.... checking.... January 7th. ga lenoard <[leonard] LMORGENSTERN> I was just going to say that if we are degenerating <[leonard] LMORGENSTERN> to baad puns, we should leave* ga ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> I was just wondering, if we are <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> going to be discussing FORTH anymore, or just scheduling <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> technicalities <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> ga ok actually, we've set a schedule... <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> !! adjourn? ga that we'd only be here an hour... <[leonard] LMORGENSTERN> has left. as far as I'm concerned we can quit... but if someone WANT's to stay.... I'm not going to say no. ga ga dave <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Ok. Someone name a topic. Any topic. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> ga <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> Nice holiday everyone. ,next <[Alan F.] ATFURMAN> has left. well dave... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Guess not. See you later it's just you and me... see ya! <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> has left.