ZXForth. Plagerism,clever marketing or something else?

[kpalser]

I sent some comms to both Bob and David back in May this year to ask if I may include the Forth ROM in my iOS/iPadOS ZX81 app. I did not get a response from either. With Bob I tried messaging his LinkedIn and a gmail account that I found (I didn't try his work email address as I thought that would be crossing a line after trying the first two). With David I tried to contact him via a business that I knew they (David and his partner Victoria) had used. I think David moved with his partner to South Africa.

I recall seeing Bob released the source code to the ROM in the 1990s and I suspect Bob has received comms but has moved on and doesn't want to dwell in the past. I hope I'm wrong.

If any of you do make contact, then I'd be grateful if you could mention my desire to include the ROM.

[jdfan1000]

On the plus side, my email to Bob didn't bounce. OTOH, I've not heard back, either.

All of this prompted me to update my entry on Pluri-Forth (marketed as Tree-Forth by Soft Magic):
https://www.timexsinclair.com/product/pluri-forth/

Bob did release the source code back around 1990, though it's not clear where:
https://www.timexsinclair.com/article/treeforth/

(About 2/3rds down on the right page here: https://archive.org/stream/SincLink/Sin ... 9/mode/2up)

[Moggy]

Some good reading there Jdfan. The first link in your list I posted on the German forum three years ago as they do a lot of Forth work and it sparked some discussion but more importantly revealed the maths bug in the UK version which Bokje of the German forum fixed then issued a corrected version. This corrected version is the one that should be used in either emulation or EPROM.
As far as I'm aware the emulator Eighty One still uses the bugged version even though the error was pointed out at the time,obviously will stand correction on this

link to the German forum thread.
https://forum.tlienhard.com/phpBB3/view ... f=2&t=2151

Also attached is the corrected ROM image should anyone have a use for it.

[jdfan1000]

Just confirming: the binary is the Husband Forth?

[Moggy]

Just confirming: the binary is the Husband Forth?

It is yes.

[stefano]

forgive my late, slightly unrelated comment.
I was a lucky participant of a scientific publication in recent years related to the eastern Europe computing history.
My small contribution was mainly based on a tool we are including in z88dk, basck.c
It simply looks in binary files for known machine code patterns and identifies the type of BASIC interpreter, mostly focusing on Microsoft BASIC 80.
It is accurate enough to demonstrate that some of those 'totally developed locally" project were , at least for the ROM portion, not original at all.
I think that at the time the tools and the skills to inspect a ROM and understand its content were very scarse and, in conjunction with the expectation/plan of a relatively limited distribution it was worth to take the risk of being legally issued (which sometimes happened) .

This brings to my mind also a positive thought on the new generations and the actual skill, culture and tools we now have regarding the IT stuff.

One more consideration regarding the Italian law: the software patent protection evolved only in 1994. Before that moment the software piracy was a common phenomenon, e.g. in that exact moment all the "floppy disk magazines" and 'tape magazines" stopped their publications.
Such magazines were often compilations of crap translations in Italian of marketed games.

[kpalser]

On the plus side, my email to Bob didn't bounce. OTOH, I've not heard back, either.

I’m guessing he never got back to you. I’m wondering whether I should try again.

[jdfan1000]

Yea, never heard from him.

[jdfan1000]

Reviving this thread to mention that I have come into possession of two copies of the Tree-Forth manual. I've unbound one (just 3 giant staples), scanned it and uploaded here:
https://archive.org/details/tree-forth

Best,
David

[Moggy]

Thanks for this David.

Whilst I think most of us have a re-jigged copy of the manual I don't we've ever seen the original so thanks again, much appreciated.