cwpjr@cbnewse.att.com (clyde.w.jr.phillips) (04/04/91)
Latest Arrow Distributor catalog still lists forth as one of the popular languages. Current Midnight Engineering has a decent article about forth as in New Micros board and developement environment. Current Cicuit Cellar Inc has 2 articles about HLL use in embedded control that are specific critiques of using "C". One article says they present 2nd generation "C" compilers don't work to well and the other says "C" compilers and all their hidden details/assumptions is inapropriate for embedded developement. No mention of forth... Next I will mention an article about forth and some variants that I didn't know was a forth article: DDJ #152 June 1989 "Variable Level Programming" Ronald Fisher (GERMANY) He basically states that a vll like forth is better than mixing C & ASM to get systems programming done. He discusses some Japanese and European variants of forth, in particular that a Japanese Engineer (Akira Katagiri) ported fig to a system in 1979 and then rewrote/extended it into something called ( amazingly eno ) FIFTH. Note there is no mention of the FIFTH we know but it is stated that "FIFTH is widely used in Japan" FUTURE86 is an evolution of FIFTH. Says a commercial compiler for FUTURE86 has been used to implement a natural language compiler and automated postal scales. The big difference is that rpn is used for programming but compile time code is infix, and infix assembly code all can be used inline. Eamples shows legit code to be: BUFSIZE EQU 256 #BUFS EQU 4 MAXBUFS EQU BUFSIZE * #BUFS Compile time infix is supported via parens, ie 17 (34 *45 + 8) VAR @ over A two pass compiler accomplishes this... Has anyone seen or used this product? Thanks, Clyde