albaugh@dms.UUCP (Mike Albaugh) (03/23/90)
From article <26086eb6.4cc6@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, by jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck): > In article <5200053@m.cs.uiuc.edu> robison@m.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >>[...] Can anyone comment on whether >>FORTH was inspired by the Burroughs stack machines? > > I took a course in Forth from polyForth back in 1981. We were given a > dose of the history of Forth and even graced by a visit from Charlie Moore, > its creator. The first incarnation of Forth was done on a PDP11 with 4k > of core memory. If Charlie Moore said that, he seems to be re-writing history. The party line in 1979 or so was that the first implementation was on an IBM 1130, which preceded the PDP-11 by a bit. Not that it matters a whole heck of a lot, but repeated factoids become "true" on the net. Also, RPN was pretty pervasive by that time, and the English Electric KDF-9 (previously mentioned on this thread) preceded the Burroughs machines by a bit too, so the Burroughs-Forth connection is tenuous at best. > I belive the main considerations were 1. compactness of > code (hence threaded implementation) and 2. simplicity of compilation > (hence reverse polish notation and stacks). _That_ I'll agree with :-) Mike | Mike Albaugh (albaugh@dms.UUCP || {...decwrl!pyramid!}weitek!dms!albaugh) | Atari Games Corp (Arcade Games, no relation to the makers of the ST) | 675 Sycamore Dr. Milpitas, CA 95035 voice: (408)434-1709 | The opinions expressed are my own (Boy, are they ever)