Paktor@cup.portal.com (10/01/88)
In article <1015.3.200.15 Re: Jack Woehr's amazing productivity!> <8/31/88 06:34 koopman@a.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Philip Koopman)> writes: > I don't think a preprocessor is the correct answer. Forth works better > by building and using tool sets that form extensions to the language. > An idea I like better is mating an interactive C compiler into the > Forth environment. Use C for those parts of the application that it > is appropriate for, and Forth when it is appropriate. About five years ago, in '83, I think, I came across a product called Hyper-Forth, implemented on the Sage (does anyone remember the Sage? It was _the_ "hot" 68000-based micro-system at the time...), and the ubiquitious, iniquitous, ever-bluiferous (oh, all right: flame off) IBM-PC. I met the implementer at a Forth convention, here in Silicon Valley. All I remember about him is that his first name was (and presumably still is) David, and that he operated out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. What I remember about the system included the following: (1) It interfaced C with Forth interchangeably: that is to say, one could access functions written in C from the Forth outer interpreter, and, conversely, one could incorporate Forth words into C functions. Parameters were mapped between the two languages in a fairly straight- forward way, the order on the Forth stack corresponding to the order in the C parentheses. (2) Its Forth could handle structures in its outer interpreter that "normally" needed to be placed inside definitions. For instance, one could write: BEGIN foo IF lum lom DO bar LOOP ELSE yuk THEN poo UNTIL and have it execute properly, instead of the more usual: : glom BEGIN foo IF lum lom DO bar LOOP ELSE yuk THEN poo UNTIL ; glom FORGET glom (3) It had a viable text-file interface, i.e., it could write text files, and its Forth input was from free-form text files, rather than block- structured files. I liked the idea at the time, and I like it even better now; unfortunately, I completely lost track of the chap and his product. Furthermore, Sage seems to have vanished off the horizon, and is no help in locating him. If anyone knows where he is, (or better still, Dave, if you are reading this), I would appreciate a response by E-Mail. Maybe this good idea can be resurrected or re-incarnated, or otherwise brought back to life... A posting would be nice, too, but, since I have been away on vacation, I have been swamped trying to catch up with my subscriptions, and will probably not be as quick to notice it as I would be to read my E-Mail. Thanks, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ === Mister Systems === | "You know the times David L Paktor | you impress me the most | are the times when you don't try; Paktor@cup.Portal.com | when you don't even try." -- Joni M. | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle) (10/02/88)
Sage is now called Stride Micro, and is still selling 68000-based boxes. John Nagle
jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr) (10/04/88)
regards a few recent postings on this theme ( C + Forth)
There are numberous examples in practice of combining Forth
and C. Mitch Bradley's ( wmb.@sun.com) CForth is one example.
Runs under Unix and can call C routines.
JForth implements full C Structures, a complete object-oriented
dialect, and all system calls to Amiga op system. Watch for
version 2.0 out shortly, all Amiga fans!
I worked on a project where we ran *two* forths and one C program
in a round-robin dominated by the Forths on an AT!
There is some discussion of this and some source examples on
the GEnie Forth Interest Group RT. All you FIG members, sign up!
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