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Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture?

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On 5/3/2017 4:06 AM, minforth@arcor.de wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 3. Mai 2017 08:12:32 UTC+2 schrieb Cecil - k5nwa:
>> On 5/3/2017 12:29 AM, minforth@arcor.de wrote:
>>> Am Dienstag, 2. Mai 2017 22:39:08 UTC+2 schrieb Cecil - k5nwa:
>>
>>>> I have worked on text based optimizers in the past and was able to
>>>> generate extremely good code but the optimizer was very complex and not
>>>> very fast as I would have liked, but it was extremely flexible and quite
>>>> capable. Using a template file to control the conversion of the
>>>> generated code. It used a Balanced Tree + to store and manipulate the
>>>> code. Being highly recursive is what made it slower but also gave it the
>>>> capacity to generate code that looked like a decent programmer wrote it
>>>> by hand. A negative was that once the final code was generated it was
>>>> difficult to link it back to the original source as the final product
>>>> often bore no resemblance to the original code. But all of that was
>>>> controlled by the user and how many interacting rules one had.
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> Cecil - k5nwa
>>>
>>> Non-interactive Forth code can be stored in a simple linear database of lists, names being the list headers, code the list body as sequence of symbols or literal parameters. Once you have the database of a Forth kernel, pattern recognistion, peephole optimization, target code reduction are rather easy jobs. F.ex. recursion from the entry word (e.g. MAIN) is perfect to minimize the optimized target database.
>>>
>>> Thereafter, to generate code from the target database, it is a more or less linear translation of the target database from top to bottom to assembler. Other backends could spill out direct machine code or whatever is needed.
>>>
>>> Prolog is an excellent language to do this efficiently and with very compact program code. Adding/changing new optimizer rules is easy.
>>>
>>> In the 80s I did all this with Turbo Prolog, but then had to move to other jobs. Perhaps I should revitalize it when I'm retired...
>>>
>>
>> I like Turbo Prolog, Borland did not write that software but marketed
>> it, the originators had their enhanced version called PDC Prolog, now
>> they have Visual Prolog, I have a copy of all three versions but my
>> Visual Prolog is rather an old version its V5.3 , I believe the current
>> version is 7.6, PDC and Turbo Prolog are DOS based so the will not even
>> run in Windows 10.
>>
>> Prolog is an interesting language that requires a different way of
>> thinking but its very effective at certain kinds of problems, smart text
>> processing being one of them. My funky translator/macro processor was
>> written in C, unfortunately the code is lost, the original was written
>> under CDOS an enhanced version of CPM for Z80 processors using my own
>> homemade version of a C compiler, but with minor changes it was able to
>> compile later under Turbo C.
>>
>> -- 
>> Cecil - k5nwa
> 
> You might also like Holon Forth that holds its own sources in an internal database
> http://www.holonforth.com/
> 
I do like the principle of Holon Forth, it makes it very easy to keep 
the source code organized. A long time ago I had high hopes for it but 
it was not to be.

At one point I even started working on creating a version for another 
CPU but since at the time the full source was not available, one needed 
the help of the author to integrate my newly written assembler, but the 
author asked me to not bother as it was not worth the effort.

This was a big disappointment after going through all the work to get 
the assembler working and tested. The result besides being disappointed 
was to give up using it altogether. I believe now the full source is 
available but I rather late in the day as the source is for a DOS Forth 
and Windows no longer supports DOS.

On a side project that I have worked on an off for a while, mostly off, 
I started creating a Forth VM in 386 assembler and have a good deal of 
it finished but my heart is not in it. Still it could be useful in the 
future if I finish it as I already have 86 Forth Words in assembler. 
Instead I been writing a Forth VM in C with about 45 primitives and the 
rest will be in Forth, that is 80% done with all the primitives working 
but now I'm using them to build a full system in Forth.

Every once in a while I check the status of the site since they had a 
version that did not have Forth in it but was just an editor which could 
be useful but the page on that product does not have a link to download 
it so the whole thing is a lost cause now.

After a while the author converted the software to generate and use 
Tcl/Tk, a Forth compiler/interpreter written in an interpreter just 
doesn't work out with me as it would be too slow, even now I'm in the 
middle of a project to create an easy to modify Forth in C which is too 
slow for my taste but I did not have a lot of choice as I wanted to 
avoid having to learn assembler for a variety of CPUs.

-- 
Cecil - k5nwa

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typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2017-05-01 02:24 -0700
  Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2017-05-01 17:40 +0200
    Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-05-01 19:35 +0300
      Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2017-05-02 08:13 +0200
    Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> - 2017-05-01 15:17 -0700
      Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-05-01 20:11 -0700
      Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2017-05-02 09:07 +0200
  Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Rod Pemberton <NeedNotReplyHere@xrsevnneqk.cem> - 2017-05-01 18:34 -0400
  Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-05-01 12:41 -1000
  Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-05-01 19:33 -0700
  Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2017-05-02 01:51 -0700
  Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? minforth@arcor.de - 2017-05-02 06:17 -0700
    Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-05-02 12:59 -0500
      Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-05-02 10:07 -1000
        Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-05-02 15:39 -0500
          Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? minforth@arcor.de - 2017-05-02 22:29 -0700
            Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-05-03 01:12 -0500
              Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? minforth@arcor.de - 2017-05-03 02:06 -0700
                Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-05-03 13:52 -0500
                Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? minforth@arcor.de - 2017-05-03 22:23 -0700
                Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Ilya Tarasov <ilya74.tarasov@gmail.com> - 2017-05-04 04:59 -0700
    Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Rob Sciuk <rob@controlq.com> - 2017-05-08 15:38 -0400
  Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? stephen@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2017-05-02 19:41 +0000
    Re: typical actual time for implementing kernel in a new architecture? Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-05-02 15:25 -0500

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