Why Forth?
Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:47 am
Why Forth? Maybe some of our Forth programmers can comment on attached work by Charles Moore.
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Why Forth?
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Re: Why Forth?
Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 2:21 pm
That's an interesting read. Some of it is a little too abstract for me - but great thoughts.
Re: Why Forth?
Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 2:59 pm
A well written and well known piece by Forths creator and I find myself in agreement with him perhaps because I share his bias for the language and its powerful simplicity,even though modern computer languages such as Python etc have supplanted it in academic use leaving Forth as a language used largely in embedded/automated systems.
Speaking as a Forth dabbler on the Raspberry Pi and a ZX81 fitted with a Forth ROM I have to say that the ability to create powerful routines from simple words that run at a reasonable speed and have those same routines occupy a relatively small footprint is something I find very attractive.
The downside for myself and ,I suspect, a few others is that there are just too many dialects of what's supposed to be a common language in the wild, imagine if you will how ridiculous it would be having 10 different versions of Z80 assembler each incompatible with the other.
Find your dialect then stick with it is my advice.
I have some superb maths routines written in Gforth for the Pi but have more chance of becoming the next Pope than translating them to run on the ZX81.
For the ZX81 I use the British adaptation of the US created Pluri-Forth known as H4th seeing as it has an editor and comes with an instruction manual and has 32bit and some 64 bit functionality. There are a couple of other Forths available one being too slow to be useful and the other has no editor or instruction manual and cannot decide whether it's Fig or Camel Forth and lacks a lot of the Forth primitives of either dialect and the only program examples included with it although pretty decent are Jupiter Ace conversions written mostly in z80 assembler which rather negates the point of Forth programming I would have thought.
Also the lack of any graphical sophistication is something lacking in Forth which I suspect is off-putting to those whose main interest is game creation/playing rather than computing, otherwise Forth can be an interesting and diverting pastime.
Just my 2 cents worth as they say.
Speaking as a Forth dabbler on the Raspberry Pi and a ZX81 fitted with a Forth ROM I have to say that the ability to create powerful routines from simple words that run at a reasonable speed and have those same routines occupy a relatively small footprint is something I find very attractive.
The downside for myself and ,I suspect, a few others is that there are just too many dialects of what's supposed to be a common language in the wild, imagine if you will how ridiculous it would be having 10 different versions of Z80 assembler each incompatible with the other.
Find your dialect then stick with it is my advice.
I have some superb maths routines written in Gforth for the Pi but have more chance of becoming the next Pope than translating them to run on the ZX81.
For the ZX81 I use the British adaptation of the US created Pluri-Forth known as H4th seeing as it has an editor and comes with an instruction manual and has 32bit and some 64 bit functionality. There are a couple of other Forths available one being too slow to be useful and the other has no editor or instruction manual and cannot decide whether it's Fig or Camel Forth and lacks a lot of the Forth primitives of either dialect and the only program examples included with it although pretty decent are Jupiter Ace conversions written mostly in z80 assembler which rather negates the point of Forth programming I would have thought.
Also the lack of any graphical sophistication is something lacking in Forth which I suspect is off-putting to those whose main interest is game creation/playing rather than computing, otherwise Forth can be an interesting and diverting pastime.
Just my 2 cents worth as they say.
Re: Why Forth?
Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:17 pm
A short hint:
We have some forth-specific developments in the german ZX-TEAM which will be presented at our annual meeting in Mahlerts (March 9th-11th).
Speech / Human Voice with ZX81 + H4TH-ROM + Vdrive, MrX & MrZ (ZX-Heinz will show a demonstration and we will record this on video).
By the way: FORTH83 is supporting the ZX Microdrive - and with vdrive(zx) it is now possible to store on SD-Cards
https://vdrivezx.com/vdrivezx/
We have some forth-specific developments in the german ZX-TEAM which will be presented at our annual meeting in Mahlerts (March 9th-11th).
Speech / Human Voice with ZX81 + H4TH-ROM + Vdrive, MrX & MrZ (ZX-Heinz will show a demonstration and we will record this on video).
By the way: FORTH83 is supporting the ZX Microdrive - and with vdrive(zx) it is now possible to store on SD-Cards
https://vdrivezx.com/vdrivezx/
Re: Why Forth?
Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:00 pm
https://vdrivezx.com/vdrivezx/
I can't load now. Anybody else? I think I have before...
My company is blocking these URLs since 8bit computer tech is a security risk.
I can't load now. Anybody else? I think I have before...
My company is blocking these URLs since 8bit computer tech is a security risk.
Re: Why Forth?
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:37 am
not more risky than today's tech, see:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germa ... KKCN1GC2MU
And this is really a joke:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germa ... KKCN1GC2HN
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germa ... KKCN1GC2MU
And this is really a joke:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germa ... KKCN1GC2HN