marksm@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Mark S Madsen) (04/28/89)
Greetings, all. I have recently become interested in Forth, and wanted to pose some questions to those more knowledgeable on the topic than myself. Please excuse me if I am repeating questions that have recently been dealt with in either of these groups. I have what appears to be a freely distributable Forth implementation on an Amuse disk. (It bears a header saying that it comes from Mountain Valley Press.) However, there is no form of documentation supplied with the program. VLIST shows a number of Amiga-specific commands, but I have thus far been unable to discern their correct syntax, and so I am still unable to save programs to disk, or load them. I was wondering whether a) Someone out there can give me a clue or three, or b) Mountain Valley Press will supply documentation. In the latter case, could someone tell me the press's address, please? It is given in the header, but the disk is 3 or 4 years old already, so I suspect the info is dated. I would also be interested to hear of any other Amiga Forth's, either commercial or freely distributable, and what the net's opinions are. I would really appreciate hearing more, especially since I am presently in the too-many-books-and-not-enough-working-software stage of the learning curve. Thanks for reading this far.
thomson@wasatch.utah.edu (Rich Thomson) (04/30/89)
In article <934@syma.sussex.ac.uk> marksm@syma.susx.ac.uk (Mark S Madsen) writes: >I have what appears to be a freely distributable Forth implementation on >an Amuse disk. (It bears a header saying that it comes from Mountain >Valley Press.) ^^^^^^ Do you mean Mountain View Press? >I would also be interested to hear of any other Amiga Forth's, either >commercial or freely distributable, and what the net's opinions are. I I believe this is a demo version of Mountain View Press' FORTH that is ported to the Amiga. I am currently unaware of a commercial implementation for the Amiga by MVP. There are two commercial FORTH implementations for the Amiga: CSI's Multi-FORTH and Delta Research's JFORTH. I currently own M-F but am planning on purchasing JF real soon now. CSI created their product as a spin-off from their Mac product. Personally, I don't think they see the Amiga as they main market and treat the product accordingly. Their manual is nice in a tutorial sense but horrible in a reference and I find it incomplete. They also had a tendency to rename certain Amiga ROM routine calls in preference of keeping the name for their own environment (the most blatant example being a renaming of Intuition's OpenWindow to iOpenWindow). This causes a problem because you don't find out about the changes without peering through their include files. This should have been clearly spelled out in a manual section; I fear it wasn't because the manual was also lifted from the Mac product. JF was developed specifically for the Amiga environment and has a number of extensions that MF just can't claim. Of course, JF is more expensive than MF, but if I was making the decision right now between the two I would buy JF with the things I know now. I am not aware of any documentation for the MVP FORTH that appeared on a Fish Disk (I believe this is what you have), except that it is conforming to the FORTH83 standard. Other than that, you might have to contact MVP for more information. Of course, you might want to look at A4th which is a PD FORTH implementation for the Amiga that is fully documented with source code, etc. It's available by anonymous FTP from cs.utah.edu in the pub/amiga directory. In addition you might want to check out the Amiga FORTH Programmer's Mailing List, of which I am the humble maintainer. Traffic has been low lately, but there are back issues also available by FTP from the above address. -- Rich -- Rich Thomson thomson@cs.utah.edu {bellcore,hplabs}!utah-cs!thomson "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly." Thomas Paine, _The Crisis_, Dec. 23rd, 1776
doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) (05/01/89)
In article <934@syma.sussex.ac.uk> marksm@syma.susx.ac.uk (Mark S Madsen) writes: >I would also be interested to hear of any other Amiga Forth's, either >commercial or freely distributable, and what the net's opinions are. I highly recommend that you check out J-Forth. Interestingly enough, the authors of J-Forth used it to win "The Fastest Programmers in the World" contest a few months ago. (The contest was to program a 7 pixel row of LED's that was swinging in an arc at a programmable rate, to display a Times Square scrolling message that said "the rain in spain falls mainly on the plains" by courtesy of stroboscopic motion blur, an impressive problem to solve in only 1.5 hours. They were the only ones to succeed within the 2 hour time limit.) They demonstrated it at BADGE (Bay Area Amiga Developers Group, Eh) and it has some really extraordinary features. One of the more basic ones is that it produces tightly optimized 68000 assembler so that it runs like a bat out of hell, yet still supports the highly interactive "interpreter- style" type of interface. It looks like it just might be the most powerful language support system available on the Amiga. I've always used C myself, and wish that some of the J-Forth features were available for C. Word of mouth about J-Forth has been highly complementary for some years now. Doug -- Doug Merritt Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow {pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug Professional Wildeyed Visionary "Of course, I'm no rocket scientist" -- Randell Jesup, Capt. Boinger Corps
jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr) (05/01/89)
In article <934@syma.sussex.ac.uk> marksm@syma.susx.ac.uk (Mark S Madsen) writes: > a) Someone out there can give me a clue or three, or want a clue? attend meetings at your local Forth Interest Group chapter! Contact D.J. Neal, 58 Woodland Way, Morden, Surry SM4 4DS > b) Mountain Valley Press will supply documentation. Mountain View Press, P.O. Box 4656, Mountain View, CA 94040 >I would also be interested to hear of any other Amiga Forth's, either >commercial or freely distributable, and what the net's opinions are. Best Commercial Amiga Forth: JForth Professional, Delta Research, P.O. Box 1051, San Rafael, CA 94901 Best PD Amiga Forth: A4TH1.5, available for downloading at many fine telecom outlets including GEnie and the one mentioned below in your correspondent's .sig \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{} {} {} {} jax@well ." Sysop, Realtime Control and Forth Board" FIG {} {} jax@chariot ." (303) 278-0364 3/12/2400 8-n-1 24 hrs." Chapter {} {} JAX on GEnie ." Tell them JAX sent you!" Coordinator {} {} {} {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
chayter@sabik.usc.edu (Carl J. Hayter) (05/01/89)
In article <934@syma.sussex.ac.uk> marksm@syma.susx.ac.uk (Mark S Madsen) writes:
*>Greetings, all. I have recently become interested in Forth, and wanted
*>to pose some questions to those more knowledgeable on the topic than
*>myself. Please excuse me if I am repeating questions that have recently
*>been dealt with in either of these groups.
*>
*>I have what appears to be a freely distributable Forth implementation on
*>an Amuse disk. (It bears a header saying that it comes from Mountain
*>Valley Press.) However, there is no form of documentation supplied with
*>the program. VLIST shows a number of Amiga-specific commands, but I have
*>thus far been unable to discern their correct syntax, and so I am still
*>unable to save programs to disk, or load them. I was wondering whether
*> a) Someone out there can give me a clue or three, or
*> b) Mountain Valley Press will supply documentation.
*>In the latter case, could someone tell me the press's address, please?
*>It is given in the header, but the disk is 3 or 4 years old already, so
*>I suspect the info is dated.
*>
*>I would also be interested to hear of any other Amiga Forth's, either
*>commercial or freely distributable, and what the net's opinions are. I
*>would really appreciate hearing more, especially since I am presently in
*>the too-many-books-and-not-enough-working-software stage of the learning
*>curve.
*>Thanks for reading this far.
well, i taught myself forth with MVP-Forth by reading the source
code that was included on the disk. if they will send documentation,
i don't know. their address, i don't know.
however, there is hope, if some nice person will repost the FTP
site that has A4th, get it, documentation, includes, everything
that you could ever need or want.
----
: carl ." looking for a good time" ;