Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Paul Rubin Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: BBC MicroBit has arrived - which Forth in Python is recommended for now? Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2016 16:42:47 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 14 Message-ID: <87d1ixp6ko.fsf@nightsong.com> References: <840cddee-749a-4aab-9644-4cfe42371840@googlegroups.com> <5fbfa685-6b97-4f6b-bb09-31f6d7e152f4@googlegroups.com> <49524e24-d693-41a1-b735-f85da37f93ca@googlegroups.com> <20160910133738.7385696c@HP-6550b> <87y42zijpi.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> <8a35ccd9-6f4e-4627-af76-2a906d1fb469@googlegroups.com> <68b77e8d-1a48-4a93-acf8-5f40c131f51a@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="55a4ccb4405021f9a93739dd04971974"; logging-data="15874"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18OzXlZQCAUPhyuYaWOh8NE" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:7Tz/+qyE3eyuxWd8+zmiB/GljgU= sha1:i8MqP7oASJbJrhIIN/ViNrNs/uM= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.forth:52021 lawrencedo99@gmail.com writes: > It means you have a whole range of languages and tools and toolkits > and applications available immediately to hand, not just one. I don't see how that follows. Certainly the minicomputer OS's of the 1970s/80s were "real OS's". It said so right in the name. But they were mostly programmed in assembly code and the tool support wasn't all that hot. The microbit has comparable hardware resources to those minis and I don't see any obstacle to it running comparable software including multi-user timesharing. Running a traditional Forth multitasker on it would be quite natural, and that's comparable to what's called an RTOS today.