Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1

Date	2015-06-20 21:46 -1000
From	"Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com>
Organization	FORTH, Inc.
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1
References	<2015Jun8.193428@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <ml6dqa$6tc$1@newsserver.rrzn.uni-hannover.de> <3c5027ca-beab-489c-8887-0b49961d29c8@googlegroups.com> <-uKdnSpMkacTzOrInZ2dnUU7-V2dnZ2d@supernews.com> <mm5o8e$4vv$1@speranza.aioe.org>
Message-ID	<GNOdnTFd7cZQ9hvInZ2dnUU7-d2dnZ2d@supernews.com> (permalink)

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On 6/20/15 9:14 PM, HAA wrote:
> Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
>> On 6/9/15 2:40 AM, Mark Wills wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, 9 June 2015 11:06:04 UTC+1, Matthias Koch  wrote:
>>>>> What about nibble-addressed/bit-addressed machines?
>>>>>
>>>>> No implementations of standard Forth on such machines are known to me;
>>>>> probably the benefits of standard systems do not outweigh the costs on
>>>>> such restricted machines.  Such machines are becoming rarer over time,
>>>>> so if nobody has created such a system yet, it is unlikely to happen
>>>>> in the future.
>>>>
>>>> May I ask if there currently still is a bit-addressed microcontroller out in the
>>>> wild and in production to play with ? I dived into this topic and only found the
>>>> TMS34010 vintage graphics processor.
>>>>
>>>> Matthias
>>>
>>> I'm not aware of any. Like you, the last I heard/used was the TMS34010
>>> and TMS34020 back in ~93/94.
>>>
>>
>> One member of the Forth94 TC had a Forth on a nibble-addressed machine,
>> and there was another with 6-bit bytes. Later, some of Chuck's machines
>> had cell-sized chars.
>
> Supporting obsolete or little-used technology can end up doing more harm than
> good.  Forth-94 took a 'norm' like 2's complement and turned it into something
> that's 'not portable'.  The result has been users avoid 2's complement code at
> the expense of efficiency.

Smart ones just declare a dependency on 2's complement and forge ahead. 
Virtually every actual program has far more serious dependencies: on a 
processor, host OS, other hardware, etc.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

-- 
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Elizabeth D. Rather   (US & Canada)   800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc.                         +1 310.999.6784
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Thread

RfD: 1 chars = 1 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-06-08 17:34 +0000
  Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-08 10:59 -0700
    Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-06-08 19:57 +0100
      Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Michael Barry <barrym95838@yahoo.com> - 2015-06-08 16:35 -0700
        Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-06-09 06:18 +0000
      Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-06-09 23:35 +0200
        Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-06-09 23:49 +0100
          Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-06-10 01:41 +0200
            Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-06-10 02:03 +0100
              Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-06-10 12:22 +0000
                Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-06-11 14:50 +0100
              Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-06-10 14:46 +0200
    Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-06-09 07:09 +0000
      Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Stefan Mauerhofer <smauerhofer@androsoft.ch> - 2015-06-09 01:52 -0700
      Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-06-09 23:29 +0200
      Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 David Thompson <dave.thompson2@verizon.net> - 2015-06-21 12:46 -0400
  Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-06-09 12:06 +0200
    Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-06-09 03:40 -0700
      Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-06-09 12:45 +0200
        Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-09 07:17 -0400
          Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-06-09 14:30 +0200
      Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-06-09 12:50 -0800
        Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2015-06-21 17:14 +1000
          Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-06-20 21:46 -1000
            Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2015-06-23 15:05 +1000
              Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-06-22 19:42 -1000
                Re: RfD: 1 chars = 1 "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2015-06-27 14:08 +1000

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