sys@tropix.UUCP (Michael J Shon) (01/29/85)
Hello. I have just been told about the wonderful things that can
be done with Forth. It is apparent that I could make good
use of its capabilities if only
1) I knew how to use it
and
2) I had source for it available
So, I am trying to find out
1) the names/publishers of any good books on
the subject of Forth (for C and non -programmers )
and
2) the names of any person or company who can provide
my company with Forth kernel source for the 68000.
I'm just a lowly programmer, and Management is not yet convinced
that we need Forth, so I'm looking for a really cheap Forth
system - public domain or a very low cost commercial system.
It need not be anything fancy - (how can it be at the price I'm
hoping for?) just enough to do some hardware debugging.
In fact, I'm hoping that it can be put in ROM to replace or
augment our current debugger written in C, but if it only
runs under Unix, that's fine too. (By the way, Unix is our
only operating system - I know nothing of CP/M or xx-DOS or
whatever Forth is normally used with (if indeed it is) but
I'll take any Forth I can get.)
Of course, no support is expected - we're accustomed to porting
things and fixing bugs ourselves.
We are willing to pay a fee for the service of making
a tape of course.
So, if anyone knows of a Forth system for the 68000 that doesn't
cost much and works, or almost works, or doesn't work but most
of the code is there, or ANYTHING
Please,
Let me know. Also send your recommendations for
books on Forth and where to get them.
Thanks in advance-
Mike Shon
GCA/Tropel Division
716-377-3200 x221
{ihnp4,ritcv,allegra,masscomp}!tropix!syssahunt@snow.UUCP (Steve Hunt) (02/03/85)
In reply to Mike Shon (GCA/Tropical Division), who wants a cheap Forth for the 68000 (in net.wanted.sources); If all else fails, may I suggest you have a shot at writing your own Forth? It is about ten orders of magnitude easier than languages like C and Pascal. This is because Forth requires:- * No lexical analysis (well, except for scanning for spaces in the input) * No parsing, and * Not a lot else. Furthermore most of Forth is written in Forth, only about 10 - 20% really needs to be done in assembler - the more the merrier of course. I did one on in 6502 assembler and it took about two weeks (and that was just a few hours spare time each evening). I had no language writing experience at the time. I imagine it would be a cinch on a more powerful beast like the 68000. I was using a book called "Writing Threaded Interpretive Languages": I can't remember either author or publisher, but I do know it was an American book so you should be able to get hold of it. The book is not specifically about Forth, but along with Leo Brodie's "Starting Forth" (not an implementation book, but it contains countless useful clues) it gives all the information you need. There are many advantages to writing your own Forth, not the least of which is being able to decide just which parts of the language to write in machine code. You may even be able to make a few bucks from it if you write a decent one! -- ---- From the cutting edge of computer science, Steve Hunt ... mcvax!ukc!qtlon!flame!ubu!snow!sahunt