Groups > comp.lang.forth > #50734 > unrolled thread

Re: BBC MicroBit has arrived - which Forth in Python is recommended for now?

Started by	Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com>
First post	2016-09-07 11:24 -0500
Last post	2016-09-11 04:51 -0700
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#50734 — Re: BBC MicroBit has arrived - which Forth in Python is recommended for now?

From	Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com>
Date	2016-09-07 11:24 -0500
Subject	Re: BBC MicroBit has arrived - which Forth in Python is recommended for now?
Message-ID	<nqpf0b$6f4$1@dont-email.me>

On 4/6/2016 2:14 AM, JUERGEN wrote:
> A MicroBit has arrived on my desk, but no Forth yet available. Until a real Forth is running, and as Python is a supported language - is there a Forth out there in Python I could load and run? Speed is not the issue for now nor is completeness. I mainly want to control the IOs, and the 25 LEDs are just enough to display ok, or a 4 Bit INPUT value, a 4 bit OUTPUT value - and 3 levels of Stack ...
> Any help appreciated. http://microbit-micropython.readthedocs.org/en/latest/.
> Picture and video you can find at https://www.facebook.com/groups/PROGRAMMINGFORTH/?fref=ts. Has anybody re-written JonesForth in Python?
>

I'm not sure it's worth the effort of dealing with Forth written in an 
interpretive language, I would think it would be slow.

Are you sure that something like the MPE Lite version of their compiler 
would not be usable with minimum effort? It targets the ARM M0 as part 
of it's capabilities, you might have to copy and change the CPU file to 
define where the Flash, and RAM are and define a couple of words to do 
IO but it should not be a horrible amount of work. You will be limited 
to 64K of FLASH, and 16K of RAM, but Forth can do an awful lot with 
that. It has a tethered version available to minimize the resources used 
in the target while staying interactive

There are other free versions of Forth for M0 CPUs such as Mecrisp.

-- 
Cecil - k5nwa

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#50755

From	JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com>
Date	2016-09-08 11:57 -0700
Message-ID	<a0e2702c-4f04-419e-b547-443309a59dd2@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#50734

On Wednesday, September 7, 2016 at 5:24:46 PM UTC+1, Cecil - k5nwa wrote:
> On 4/6/2016 2:14 AM, JUERGEN wrote:
> > A MicroBit has arrived on my desk, but no Forth yet available. Until a real Forth is running, and as Python is a supported language - is there a Forth out there in Python I could load and run? Speed is not the issue for now nor is completeness. I mainly want to control the IOs, and the 25 LEDs are just enough to display ok, or a 4 Bit INPUT value, a 4 bit OUTPUT value - and 3 levels of Stack ...
> > Any help appreciated. http://microbit-micropython.readthedocs.org/en/latest/.
> > Picture and video you can find at https://www.facebook.com/groups/PROGRAMMINGFORTH/?fref=ts. Has anybody re-written JonesForth in Python?
> >
> 
> I'm not sure it's worth the effort of dealing with Forth written in an 
> interpretive language, I would think it would be slow.
> 
> Are you sure that something like the MPE Lite version of their compiler 
> would not be usable with minimum effort? It targets the ARM M0 as part 
> of it's capabilities, you might have to copy and change the CPU file to 
> define where the Flash, and RAM are and define a couple of words to do 
> IO but it should not be a horrible amount of work. You will be limited 
> to 64K of FLASH, and 16K of RAM, but Forth can do an awful lot with 
> that. It has a tethered version available to minimize the resources used 
> in the target while staying interactive
> 
> There are other free versions of Forth for M0 CPUs such as Mecrisp.
> 
> -- 
> Cecil - k5nwa

I got hold of a Microbit sent it to Germany to Matthias, he adapted Mecisp, it runs under Linux, 
no solution yet for Windows. And this is what I want. 12 year olds normally do not have Linux.
For me speed is no issue, actually it does not matter it will be the fastest Forth on microbit until there is a better implementation - 
I want to see how it can be implemented. 
There are enough DevBoards from ST around and I have MPE VFX LITE running on it now.

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#50788

From	lawrencedo99@gmail.com
Date	2016-09-09 13:48 -0700
Message-ID	<19d3a78e-e9c5-4ea4-bf5a-883b7f9b27cf@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#50755

On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 6:57:51 AM UTC+12, JUERGEN wrote:
> 12 year olds normally do not have Linux.

Why not? It’s easy to get hold of.

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#50799

From	JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com>
Date	2016-09-10 00:19 -0700
Message-ID	<51208094-3484-441d-8f95-04927b760e57@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#50788

On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 9:48:20 PM UTC+1, lawren...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 6:57:51 AM UTC+12, JUERGEN wrote:
> > 12 year olds normally do not have Linux.
> 
> Why not? It’s easy to get hold of.

what do you mean?

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#50802

From	lawrencedo99@gmail.com
Date	2016-09-10 00:48 -0700
Message-ID	<5fbfa685-6b97-4f6b-bb09-31f6d7e152f4@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#50799

On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 7:19:46 PM UTC+12, JUERGEN wrote:
> On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 9:48:20 PM UTC+1, lawren...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 6:57:51 AM UTC+12, JUERGEN wrote:
> > > 12 year olds normally do not have Linux.
> > 
> > Why not? It’s easy to get hold of.
> 
> what do you mean?

A 12-year-old child could figure out how to download and install it.

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#50808

From	JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com>
Date	2016-09-10 04:06 -0700
Message-ID	<49524e24-d693-41a1-b735-f85da37f93ca@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#50802

On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 8:48:21 AM UTC+1, lawren...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 7:19:46 PM UTC+12, JUERGEN wrote:
> > On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 9:48:20 PM UTC+1, lawren...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Friday, September 9, 2016 at 6:57:51 AM UTC+12, JUERGEN wrote:
> > > > 12 year olds normally do not have Linux.
> > > 
> > > Why not? It’s easy to get hold of.
> > 
> > what do you mean?
> 
> A 12-year-old child could figure out how to download and install it.

But why should it install and learn Linux ( it does not know) just to get Mecrisp ( it does not know) and a MicroBit going, to run Forth (it does not know) - too far fetched  - Windows or for specialists.
A lot better to wait until somebody get's it going under Windows. 
Or independant just using a terminal function. 
I just got an 1802 in FPGA in my post - USB cable into PC - Monitor is running - this is what I expect.

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#50809

From	Jan Coombs <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>
Date	2016-09-10 13:37 +0100
Message-ID	<20160910133738.7385696c@HP-6550b>
In reply to	#50808

On Sat, 10 Sep 2016 04:06:46 -0700 (PDT)
JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> wrote:

> But why should it install and learn Linux ( it does not know)
> just to get Mecrisp ( it does not know) and a MicroBit going,
> to run Forth (it does not know) - too far fetched  - Windows
> or for specialists. A lot better to wait until somebody get's
> it going under Windows. Or independant just using a terminal
> function. I just got an 1802 in FPGA in my post - USB cable
> into PC - Monitor is running - this is what I expect.

The pre-built Mecrisp-Stellaris binaries for the MicroBit and
other processors are freely available [1]. There are also install
instructions, part quoted below [2]. The microbit instruction is
just a little more complex than plugging in your 1802. 

Should you wish to modify your 1802, then you will need to
obtain and learn more tools and techniques.  For Mecrisp, the
source code and tools to do this are free, but require a linux
environment to operate.  

Jan Coombs
-- 

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/mecrisp/

[2] (Copied from the Stellaris-Mecrisp README)

;----------------------------------------------------------
Hardware and configuration for Microbit:
;----------------------------------------------------------

  Flashing can be done by just copying
  mecrisp-stellaris-microbit.hex into the Microbit which comes
  with a mass storage interface.

  Communication is done over P0.24 TX and P0.25 RX, connected
  to USB-serial-bridge on debugger section.

;----------------------------------------------------------

Mecrisp-Stellaris itself is sending LF for line ending,
but recognizes both LF and CR. Invoke Picocom with something like
picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyACM0 --imap lfcrlf,crcrlf --omap
delbs,crlf

For changing line ending to CR-LF or whatever else you like,
look at the beginning of mecrisp-stellaris-....s.

Assembling is done with the GCC-Arm-Embedded toolchain:
https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded/

;----------------------------------------------------------

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#50813

From	JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com>
Date	2016-09-10 08:47 -0700
Message-ID	<e5184185-45e9-4346-ae72-c10d7b370a95@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#50809

On Saturday, September 10, 2016 at 1:37:40 PM UTC+1, Jan Coombs wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Sep 2016 04:06:46 -0700 (PDT)
> JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> wrote:
> 
> > But why should it install and learn Linux ( it does not know)
> > just to get Mecrisp ( it does not know) and a MicroBit going,
> > to run Forth (it does not know) - too far fetched  - Windows
> > or for specialists. A lot better to wait until somebody get's
> > it going under Windows. Or independant just using a terminal
> > function. I just got an 1802 in FPGA in my post - USB cable
> > into PC - Monitor is running - this is what I expect.
> 
> The pre-built Mecrisp-Stellaris binaries for the MicroBit and
> other processors are freely available [1]. There are also install
> instructions, part quoted below [2]. The microbit instruction is
> just a little more complex than plugging in your 1802. 
> 
> Should you wish to modify your 1802, then you will need to
> obtain and learn more tools and techniques.  For Mecrisp, the
> source code and tools to do this are free, but require a linux
> environment to operate.  
> 
> Jan Coombs
> -- 
> 
> [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/mecrisp/
> 
> [2] (Copied from the Stellaris-Mecrisp README)
> 
> ;----------------------------------------------------------
> Hardware and configuration for Microbit:
> ;----------------------------------------------------------
> 
>   Flashing can be done by just copying
>   mecrisp-stellaris-microbit.hex into the Microbit which comes
>   with a mass storage interface.
> 
>   Communication is done over P0.24 TX and P0.25 RX, connected
>   to USB-serial-bridge on debugger section.
> 
> ;----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Mecrisp-Stellaris itself is sending LF for line ending,
> but recognizes both LF and CR. Invoke Picocom with something like
> picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyACM0 --imap lfcrlf,crcrlf --omap
> delbs,crlf
> 
> For changing line ending to CR-LF or whatever else you like,
> look at the beginning of mecrisp-stellaris-....s.
> 
> Assembling is done with the GCC-Arm-Embedded toolchain:
> https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded/
> 
> ;----------------------------------------------------------

Jan, I do not understand what you want to say. 
Mecrisp needs Linux. I am not interested in Linux - end of story.
I think your comment is rather insulting.
Or you have not read the other parts on here.
It might help your understanding reading a few more clips and from the beginning

Show me how to load it and run it under Windows.
I asked Matthias directly if this can be used under Windows  - He said NO - 
I asked him if this will be available in the future - 
His answer was: NOT interested as he has ported as he wanted end of story. 

I do not really need Forth on the MicroBit for myself, this was for my STEM Ambassador Activities. 

I must say I rather regret now to have gone through the pain of organising a MicroBit for him when they were rather rare, send it to Germany ..
The result was not what I expected. 

The 1802 in an FPGA board was used as example. pPlug and play to get started -
Your comment is rather insulting.
I have enough Forths to keep be busy and have fun with.
And the 4e4th on MicroBox and the noForth. 
How I spend my spare time I rather decide myself.

And please do not tell me to learn about the 1802 - I was Application Engineer at RCA for the 1802 and the peripherals and introduced this to the customers across Europe - and wrote the book about the 1802.

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#50819

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Date	2016-09-10 11:45 -0700
Message-ID	<87h99nk304.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com>
In reply to	#50813

JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> writes:
> Show me how to load it and run it under Windows. ...
> I do not really need Forth on the MicroBit for myself, this was for my
> STEM Ambassador Activities.

If you're trying to get students to leave the beaten path of C and use
Forth instead, a good first step might be helping them off the beaten
path of Windows and onto Linux.

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#50824

From	albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst)
Date	2016-09-10 21:44 +0200
Message-ID	<nr1nqk$ved$1@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl>
In reply to	#50819

In article <87h99nk304.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com>,
Paul Rubin  <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> writes:
>> Show me how to load it and run it under Windows. ...
>> I do not really need Forth on the MicroBit for myself, this was for my
>> STEM Ambassador Activities.
>
>If you're trying to get students to leave the beaten path of C and use
>Forth instead, a good first step might be helping them off the beaten
>path of Windows and onto Linux.

Well said.
Developers can spend their time only once, like JUERGEN said.
Too often the time spent in programming for Windows turns out
wasted. Fortunately I can test the windows version of ciforth
on a virtual box under Linux.

I find it annoying to have someone tell me to work for Windows,
unless he pays for it, of course.

Groetjes Albert
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

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#50826

From	Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com>
Date	2016-09-10 15:10 -0500
Message-ID	<nr1pci$vch$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to	#50824

On 9/10/2016 2:44 PM, Albert van der Horst wrote:
> In article <87h99nk304.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com>,
> Paul Rubin  <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> writes:
>>> Show me how to load it and run it under Windows. ...
>>> I do not really need Forth on the MicroBit for myself, this was for my
>>> STEM Ambassador Activities.
>>
>> If you're trying to get students to leave the beaten path of C and use
>> Forth instead, a good first step might be helping them off the beaten
>> path of Windows and onto Linux.
>
> Well said.
> Developers can spend their time only once, like JUERGEN said.
> Too often the time spent in programming for Windows turns out
> wasted. Fortunately I can test the windows version of ciforth
> on a virtual box under Linux.
>
> I find it annoying to have someone tell me to work for Windows,
> unless he pays for it, of course.
>
> Groetjes Albert
>
Personally, I'm slowly getting more sick and tired of Window 10 
problems, I been pondering on the possibility of switching my PCs to 
Linux, specifically Mint Linux and offshoot of Ubuntu.

Yesterday evening, and this morning I've spent it troubleshooting 
problems on a PC that I use to run a small mail order business that I 
have, when I turned on the PC, it started updating the PC to a new 
version and once it started you can't stop it. When it finished and 
re-booted, my networking, video display, and AVR programmer drivers 
refused to load so they would not work, the video was in VGA mode. I 
finally got it working 30 minutes ago, by installing the latest version 
of the OS, but it was a royal pain, orders were not shipped due to the 
issue. I have two PCs with Mint on them, and over the years they have 
never had any problems of any kind, they just work. In the next few days 
I will install an additional SSD Disk on my two main computers and load 
Mint Linux 17.3 LTS and start testing my applications under Wine.

-- 
Cecil - k5nwa

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#50830

From	lawrencedo99@gmail.com
Date	2016-09-10 19:24 -0700
Message-ID	<a1b54bad-35a1-425b-b80e-0d5efad28dc1@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#50813

On Sunday, September 11, 2016 at 3:47:59 AM UTC+12, JUERGEN wrote:
> I am not interested in Linux - end of story.

You are not. But children have not had their imagination stultified in this way--yet.

Think of them, rather than yourself.

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#50822

From	albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst)
Date	2016-09-10 21:31 +0200
Message-ID	<nr1n2k$vbn$1@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl>
In reply to	#50809

In article <20160910133738.7385696c@HP-6550b>,
Jan Coombs  <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>;----------------------------------------------------------
>Hardware and configuration for Microbit:
>;----------------------------------------------------------
>
>  Flashing can be done by just copying
>  mecrisp-stellaris-microbit.hex into the Microbit which comes
>  with a mass storage interface.

Flashing a micro SBC can be a great challenge. Apparently it is easy
with the Microbit. You may announce that with some more emphasis.
But what do you mean by "comes with a mass storage interface"?

>
>  Communication is done over P0.24 TX and P0.25 RX, connected
>  to USB-serial-bridge on debugger section.

Huh?

<SNIP>

Groetjes Albert
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

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#50827

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Date	2016-09-10 13:27 -0700
Message-ID	<87y42zijpi.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com>
In reply to	#50822

albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) writes:
> But what do you mean by "comes with a mass storage interface"?

I think that means if you plug it into a computer USB port, it presents
to the computer as a USB flash disk, so you can copy files to it
conveniently and them use them on the microbit board.  The microbit has
256kB of on-chip flash.  I thought it had an SD card slot too, but it
doesn't seem to have one.

I'm not all that enthused about the microbit given its expense.  Here's
a really cheap ARM board that looks like a nice Forth target:

   https://www.aliexpress.com/item//32369020878.html

The double slash in the url before the part number is required.

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#51904

From	rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Date	2016-10-16 16:32 -0400
Message-ID	<nu0o4t$71u$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to	#50827

On 9/10/2016 4:27 PM, Paul Rubin wrote:
> albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) writes:
>> But what do you mean by "comes with a mass storage interface"?
>
> I think that means if you plug it into a computer USB port, it presents
> to the computer as a USB flash disk, so you can copy files to it
> conveniently and them use them on the microbit board.  The microbit has
> 256kB of on-chip flash.  I thought it had an SD card slot too, but it
> doesn't seem to have one.
>
> I'm not all that enthused about the microbit given its expense.  Here's
> a really cheap ARM board that looks like a nice Forth target:
>
>    https://www.aliexpress.com/item//32369020878.html
>
> The double slash in the url before the part number is required.

That is a pretty cheap board.  It even includes the header that you can 
solder yourself.

Meanwhile, the microbit has gotten cheaper.  When first out the web site 
said the board was $75 and the kit with the board was $50.  Now you can 
get the board for under $15 and the Go kit for under $17.  I assume 
shipping is extra.

https://www.pi-supply.com/product/microbit/?aelia_cs_currency=USD&feed_country=US&gclid=CNfjh-6T4M8CFQMehgodDAsG0g

https://www.pi-supply.com/product/microbit-go/?aelia_cs_currency=USD&feed_country=US&gclid=CLLohPKT4M8CFUJbhgodXi8JzQ

Not sure I need one.  Now that it runs Mecrisp, it could be useful, but 
I have plenty of small MCU boards and no new needs for more.  I have 
some Cypress boards that I wish Mecrisp ran on, but I don't think it was 
ever ported completely.  No matter, even without the Cypress boards I 
have plenty of things to play with.

-- 

Rick C

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#51911

From	lawrencedo99@gmail.com
Date	2016-10-16 16:37 -0700
Message-ID	<8a35ccd9-6f4e-4627-af76-2a906d1fb469@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#51904

On Monday, October 17, 2016 at 9:32:49 AM UTC+13, rickman wrote:
> Meanwhile, the microbit has gotten cheaper.

But it’s not self-contained: it cannot host its own development environment, like the Raspberry π can.

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#51914

From	rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Date	2016-10-16 19:46 -0400
Message-ID	<nu13fk$989$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to	#51911

On 10/16/2016 7:37 PM, lawrencedo99@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, October 17, 2016 at 9:32:49 AM UTC+13, rickman wrote:
>> Meanwhile, the microbit has gotten cheaper.
>
> But it’s not self-contained: it cannot host its own development environment, like the Raspberry π can.

Actually, I believe it can host a Forth dev system.  That's what Mecrisp 
is.

Even if what you say is true, so what?

-- 

Rick C

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#51921

From	lawrencedo99@gmail.com
Date	2016-10-16 18:40 -0700
Message-ID	<68b77e8d-1a48-4a93-acf8-5f40c131f51a@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#51914

On Monday, October 17, 2016 at 12:46:16 PM UTC+13, rickman wrote:
> Even if what you say is true, so what?

The π is a real computer, that can run a real OS.

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#51925

From	rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Date	2016-10-16 22:20 -0400
Message-ID	<nu1chd$m0i$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to	#51921

On 10/16/2016 9:40 PM, lawrencedo99@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, October 17, 2016 at 12:46:16 PM UTC+13, rickman wrote:
>> Even if what you say is true, so what?
>
> The π is a real computer, that can run a real OS.

So what is your point?

-- 

Rick C

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#52020

From	lawrencedo99@gmail.com
Date	2016-10-18 15:30 -0700
Message-ID	<b12077f4-0667-4a2c-b635-2bea65362e53@googlegroups.com>
In reply to	#51925

On Monday, October 17, 2016 at 3:20:48 PM UTC+13, rickman wrote:
>
> On 10/16/2016 9:40 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> The π is a real computer, that can run a real OS.
> 
> So what is your point?

It means you have a whole range of languages and tools and toolkits and applications available immediately to hand, not just one.

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csiph-web

Re: BBC MicroBit has arrived - which Forth in Python is recommended for now?

Contents

#50734 — Re: BBC MicroBit has arrived - which Forth in Python is recommended for now?

#50755

#50788

#50799

#50802

#50808

#50809

#50813

#50819

#50824

#50826

#50830

#50822

#50827

#51904

#51911

#51914

#51921

#51925

#52020