Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design?

From	rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design?
Date	2015-06-02 04:05 -0400
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<mkjo13$ln0$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)

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I was thinking about a timing issue and recalled that Chuck Moore had to 
write code to test his idea that he could use timing loops in the GA144 
to control a video display.  The timing loops didn't work and he had to 
add a crystal oscillator.  I think instead he ended up using a ceramic 
resonator because he couldn't get the crystal to start up reliably. 
Neither of these results were unforeseeable.

I also remember taking my swing at the GA144 and through analysis 
realized the bottleneck in the design would be the memory performance. 
So I tried to analyze a sync DRAM interface only to be limited by the 
timing data provided for the GA144.  When I asked for more detailed 
timing info on the instructions for comms and I/O I was told I didn't 
need that info, I should just build the design code it up and see if it 
works.  When I said that was not the way I work, rather I do analysis 
before I design I was told that was how that person had been doing Forth 
design for 40 years, by building and testing.

To me, when I should be able to do analysis to determine limitations and 
feasibility, it just seems silly to spend time on building and testing 
only to find things don't work.  I know I would never try to use timing 
loops to generate video signals.  I think a simple analysis would show 
the lack of stability.  Timing data is just so basic to the definition 
of a digital device that I can't see any reason to not want to use it to 
save days or weeks of development and testing that might well prove 
fruitless.

Is it typical in the Forth community to code things up rather than to 
think them through?

-- 

Rick

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Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-02 04:05 -0400
  Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-06-02 09:52 -0700
  Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-06-02 09:55 -0700
    Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-06-02 10:09 -0700
  Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2015-06-02 10:01 -0700
  Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-06-02 07:36 -1000
    Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? djc <ciesinger@gmx.net> - 2015-06-05 02:50 -0700
      Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-06-05 11:32 +0000
        Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? djc <ciesinger@gmx.net> - 2015-06-05 05:01 -0700
          Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-05 17:04 -0400
        Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-07 23:12 -0700
          Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-06-08 09:48 +0000
      Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-07 20:59 -0700
        Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? djc <ciesinger@gmx.net> - 2015-06-10 05:59 -0700
          Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-10 09:05 -0700
            Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-10 09:28 -0700
              Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-10 10:51 -0700
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-10 14:17 -0400
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-06-10 20:20 +0200
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-10 15:03 -0400
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-06-10 22:06 +0200
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-10 19:13 -0400
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-06-11 02:59 +0200
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-10 21:41 -0700
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? djc <ciesinger@gmx.net> - 2015-06-11 00:40 -0700
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-11 01:24 -0700
                Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-06-11 05:33 -0400
            Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-06-10 10:37 -0700
              Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-06-11 00:17 -0700
            Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? stephen@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2015-06-10 18:13 +0000
  Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2015-06-02 14:21 -0400
  Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2015-06-02 14:27 -0400
  Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? Bob <bob@none.com> - 2015-06-02 16:04 -0400
  Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-06-03 05:17 +0000
  Re: Is Forth About Tinkering Rather than Design? "Rod Pemberton" <boo@fasdfrewar.cdm> - 2015-06-03 03:07 -0400

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