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Re: microFORTH

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Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
> On 5/1/17 2:36 PM, HAA wrote:
> > David Schultz wrote:
> >> On 04/25/2017 03:15 AM, JUERGEN wrote:
> >>> microFORTH documentation is available on the FORTH, INC. website. Not
> >>> a new product - but many here will probably remember it. And might
> >>> have a look after many years ...
> >>>
> >>
> >> I don't know how useful it is, unless you want examples of bugs.
> >>
> >> It starts off with the definition of LOAD:
> >>
> >> : LOAD BLK C@ <R IN @ <R 0 IN ! 8* OFFSET @ + F9F DROP
> >>     BLK ! INTERPRET R> IN ! R> BLK C! ;
> >>
> >> The value in BLK is saved and restored using C@ and C! yet it has to
> >> have a larger range than that and the new value is set using !.
>
> Actually, this is for the 1802, which had a development system using
> 250K floppies! This is 1978, folks. And BLK is a user variable, so it
> had to be 16 bits. That ! is pretty tacky, but it wouldn't cause a
> failure. Obviously the "endianness" worked ok.

'blocks' were 128 bytes.  While any screen on the disk could be LOADed
thanks to ! , the C@ C! would limit use of the word "LOAD" to screens 1-31
by my calculation.  Not a big deal for floppy size storage.

>
> >> Plus most of the code is missing.
>
> Um, no, actually, this is all of it, including the assembler, compiler,
> text editor, source printing utility, metacompiler, and code for the
> kernel. We wrote a bunch of completed applications with it.

There does appear to be some source that's missing - INTERPRET,
WORD, BLOCK etc and parts of the run-time e.g. WHILE.

>
> > It seems a little too obvious to be a bug - besides which it would only
> > limit the range of screens on which the word LOAD could appear.
> > I would reserve judgement until I saw the entire code.  I assume the
> > distribution disk contained a boot image representing the forth kernel
> > which then loads screen 3.
>
> Yes, that's correct. The bootstrap was in 0 and the precompiled kernel
> is in 1 and 2.
>
> Cheers,
> Elizabeth

Perhaps someone who still has disks can dump the image.  I notice there's
been a revival of interest in 1802 Forths e.g. CamelForth and others.
http://www.retrotechnology.com/memship/figforth_1802.html

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microFORTH JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2017-04-25 01:15 -0700
  Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-04-26 09:35 +1000
    Re: microFORTH "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-04-25 14:15 -1000
      Re: microFORTH lehs <skydda.barnen@gmail.com> - 2017-04-25 23:09 -0700
      Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-01 11:15 +1000
  Re: microFORTH David Schultz <abuse@127.0.0.1> - 2017-04-30 15:02 -0500
    Re: microFORTH rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 21:13 -0400
      Re: microFORTH David Schultz <abuse@127.0.0.1> - 2017-04-30 20:24 -0500
        Re: microFORTH rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-05-01 21:02 -0400
          Re: microFORTH Rod Pemberton <NeedNotReplyHere@xrsevnneqk.cem> - 2017-05-02 05:58 -0400
          Re: microFORTH Coos Haak <htrofhc@gmail.com> - 2017-05-02 15:13 +0200
            Re: microFORTH rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-05-02 11:44 -0400
              Re: microFORTH David Schultz <abuse@127.0.0.1> - 2017-05-04 16:54 -0500
    Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-02 10:36 +1000
      Re: microFORTH "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-05-01 15:20 -1000
        Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-02 13:01 +1000
          Re: microFORTH hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-05-01 20:42 -0700
            Re: microFORTH hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-05-01 21:27 -0700
              Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-02 17:05 +1000
                Re: microFORTH "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-05-01 21:18 -1000
          Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-02 16:45 +1000
          Re: microFORTH JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2017-05-02 00:08 -0700
          Re: microFORTH hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-05-02 11:36 -0700
            Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-03 10:43 +1000
              Re: microFORTH hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-05-02 19:45 -0700
              Re: microFORTH Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-05-03 04:41 -0500
              Re: microFORTH David Schultz <abuse@127.0.0.1> - 2017-05-04 17:03 -0500
                Re: microFORTH "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-05-04 12:58 -1000
                Re: microFORTH "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-05-05 12:57 +1000
        Re: microFORTH David Schultz <abuse@127.0.0.1> - 2017-05-04 16:57 -0500
    Re: microFORTH Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-05-02 04:11 -0500
      Re: microFORTH Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-05-02 04:16 -0500
      Re: microFORTH Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2017-05-02 05:25 -0700
        Re: microFORTH "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-05-02 10:07 -1000
      Re: microFORTH David Schultz <abuse@127.0.0.1> - 2017-05-04 17:15 -0500

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