Mitch.Bradley@ENG.SUN.COM (06/25/91)
> I have seen that many Forth assemblers are available for diverse micro > processors (ex. 68K, 80X86, etc.). > > But I wonder there is any assembler existed for RISC chips (ex. MIPS, > SPARC, PA, etc.). Of course there is an assembler for SPARC. You can buy it for a reasonable price as part of my Sun Forth package. > Forth public domain programs seem only favor the traditional chips (I > suppose this is due to that chip is more available & cheap). You suppose correctly. > But the modern workstations almost equipped with the RISC chips (ex. > IBM RS6000, DECstation 5000, HP Apollo 700, Sun SPARCstation, etc.). I don't > know why the Forth experts are still insisting in the microprocessor fields. Most Forth users cannot afford to buy a workstation *because they give away their work and put it in the public domain*. I can afford to have a SPARCstation at home because I ask people to pay me for the time I spend designing, writing, debugging, documenting, debugging, porting, and supoorting code. > I saw somebody wrote a 80386 assembler, well, this is a really tough > task. 'Cause the 80386 has a more larger instrcution set. The RISC has a > more tiny instructions (usually < 100), and - IT SHOULD BE MORE EASIER TO > CODE -. Yes, it is relatively easy to code a SPARC assembler. But to test it, you need a SPARC machine. By and large, the people who have access to SPARC machines are those whose time has some value. It's hard to justify paying $10000 for a SPARC machine if all you are going to do with it is to write public domain code and give it away. It isn't much easier to document and support a SPARC assembler than a 386 assembler. It costs the same to hire somebody to answer the phone, ship orders, and do the accounting, regardless of how hard it was to write the code. > So I would like to find any Forth black-belt guru had written the > assemblers for RISCs, and put them on public domain. Then I can use them on > my workstations. /* I really hate to back to PC every time when I want to > run a Forth system! */ So ask whoever provided you with the $10000 SPARCstation to shell out an additional $200 to buy Sun Forth from me. This Forth guru is not about to further ruin the economic viability of Forth by giving away his work. In order to make a long-term commitment to Forth, I have to be able to live. I have to pay real money for housing, food, transportation, and a hundred other things. If I am going to spend full time on Forth, I have to make enough money from Forth to pay for my living expenses. If my company is to create any jobs for other Forth programmers, the company has to make enough money from Forth to pay for their living expenses too. It would be nice to have enough money left over to actually promote Forth by advertising and marketing. I think the public domain orientation was great for Forth when it was just getting started, and the small computer field was primarily a hobbyist activity. Now, I think the public domain stuff is hurting Forth, because it makes it very difficult for companies to make a living selling and supporting Forth. In today's global economy, it takes money to grow. We have to stop treating Forth like a hobbyist toy, and start treating it like a serious computer language, and that means being realistic about economics. Mitch.Bradley@Eng.Sun.COM
lahtinen@nic.funet.fi (Kimmo Lahtinen) (06/26/91)
I think Mitch Bradley has a point here. Many people do not take Forth seriously becaus it is a "public domain" language. I think that is also a reason why there are not so many commercial Forth systems available. People try to find allways a free Forth first. And some are using a shareware Forth without paying anything to the author. At this moment Forth is only a hobby for me, but even so I want a supported product and I have paid for it. And I have received support and help. I think most readers of this newgroup know that you surely need support when working with a Forth system. lahtinen@gideon.fmi.fi
KX10LYC0@TWNITRI1.BITNET (06/26/91)
I quite agree the comments of Mitch on Forth public domain matter.
When the other languages (ex. BASIC, Pascal, C, Fortran, LISP, etc.) are
supported and provided by the software companies (ex. Microsoft, Borland, etc.)
the Forth seems somewhat like an ET. Although there are some Forth providers
(ex. Forth, Inc., Mitch's Forthware, etc.) but their influence is little when
compared to the above s/w companies.
Why not these big s/w manufactures put the Forth on their product line and
sell it?
I think the main problem is that the Forth market is - VERY SMALL -,
but not it is a public domain language. I am interesting to know does someone
have the data about Forth market in 1990 (how many dollars? one million?).
You can easily find the C compilers on public domain, but the Microsoft &
Borland still sell their C tools well. The reason is very obvious that many
programmers use C language and its market is very large. So you can pick the
C references/books/tools in bookstores/software-houses conveniently.
I don't quite understand the situation in USA, at least, if you want to
find some books/references/tools about Forth in Taiwan, I bet you will be a
sitting duck.
Selling Forth is a good strategy for providing support to Forth users.
But when the Forth tools is not very widely available, - Public Domain - is
another way to fertilize Forth. When more and more programmers use Forth, then
the market will become larger gradually.
Certainly, I will spend $200 to buy SPARC Forth, but I still wish someone
will put it on public domain like ZEN, eForth, L&P F83 etc. 'cause this will
help the people learn Forth more easily and conveniently.
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my-openion worng? if I_apologize
then I_still_love_Forth
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Yin-Chih Lin
Bitnet: KX10LYC0@TWNITRI1
Internet: KX10LYC0%TWNITRI1.Bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU