ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie) (08/13/90)
Category 1, Topic 27
Message 1 Sat Aug 11, 1990
M.TRACY at 22:14 PDT
Attn: Martin Tracy From: Klaus Schleisiek-Kern
D-2000 Hamburg 78
Fax: +49 40 2297205
Hamburg, den 30. Jul 1990
Dear Martin,
ECHTZEIT '90 was a great success - so was the programmers contest.
42 exhibitors (C, UNIX and Ada, we were the only FORTH firm besides Harris).
350 attended the conference, 50 papers were presented, and there were over
2000 visitors.
ECHZEIT '91 will be in Sindelfingen again from June 11th - 13th 1991.
The contest:
a) Building the FERZENACKL [Gizmo]
This was a major effort and DELTA t is not going to do next
years widget again. [The PEARL people from Bremen will
construct next years widget.] 5 days before the contest we
finally got it working reliably for the first time. Your copy
is waiting for you here in Hamburg. [Martin designed the
FERZENACKL and is guest speaker for ECHTZEIT '91.] 12 have
been made altogether.
b) 9 teams participated. The hardware ranged from a table full
of high-tech gear (386 host, 68030 in a 19" rack as the
controller, some obscure programmable data analyzer, i.e. 3
guys sitting in front of three monitors each with a keyboard
in front of them. Probably fighting each other.) to an
original ROBOTRON A 5120 (2.5 MHz Z80) which had been
hussled 1000 km down from Rostock/East-Germany.
3 teams used C, 3 used Pascal, 2 used FORTH and 1 used PEARL. One Forth team
never really got off the ground; instead they burned their parallel port.
The winners: Dr. Hartmut Pfuller, Dipl. Ing. Ralph Neuthe and Dr. Egmont
Woitzel of FORTecH GmbH from Rostock using their obsolete hardware running
comFORTH. They've use Forth since 1979 when they rolled their own after
reading Loelinger's book [Threaded Interpretive Languages]. They solved the
problem in two hours and five minutes.
After four hours, there was no second. So, if next year again a Forth team
will make it, the world will begin to get startled. This year it was
attributed to the legendary team spirit of the East Germans who are used to
the limitations of inadequate hardware.
[The FERZENACKL: A marble is released and starts down a long zigzag ramp.
Next to the ramp is a thin wide drum with a stiff ribbon wrapped around its
circumference. At the end of the ribbon is a small wire basket. The drum can
rotate in either direction under control of a simple electric motor (not a
stepper motor). Pulses are sent to the motor to control its direction and
acceleration. By rotating the drum just so, the ribbon will start to swing.
A sudden braking causes the ribbon to flip upwards and catch the marble just
as it falls off the ramp. The drum then winds the ribbon, bringing the marble
to the top of the ramp to start again.
This was the second contest to find the Fastest Programmer in the World. The
first contest was held at the 1988 Real-Time Programming Convention in
Anaheim, California. The winners then were Mike Haas and Phil Burk of Delta
Research, with a time of one hour, thirty-five minutes.]
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