29 Mar
2020
29 Mar
'20
9:13 a.m.
On Sun, 2020-03-29 at 10:21 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
Yes, that would be J1. I've used it and even wrote a simulator for it
(in FORTH 'natch) so that I could debug my code. It's a useful FPGA
implementation.
TTFN - Guy
On Mar 28,
2020, at 2:55 PM, dwight via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
There are a few reasons most don't like Forth:
1. no type checking ( suppose to save dumb programmers )
2. Often, no floating point. ( Math has to be well thought out
but when done right in integer math it has few bugs ).
3. Few libraries ( One can often make code to attach to things
like C libraries but it is a pain in the A. Often if you know what
needs to be done it is easier and better to write your own low
level code. Things like USB are tough to get at the low level
stuff, though )
4. To many cryptic symbols ( : , . ! @ ; )
5. To much stack noise ( dup swap rot over )
I still use Forth for all my hobby work. It is the easiest language
to get something working of any of the languages I've worked with.
...
Learning to be effective with Forth has a relatively steep learning
curve. You have to understand the compiler and how it deals with
your source code. You need to get used to proper comments to handle
stack usage. You need to learn how to write short easily test words
( routines ). It is clearly not just a backwards LISP. It is not
Python either.
Dwight
No, it certainly isn't Python, which is my other major fast-coding
language.
FORTH started as a small fast real-time control language; its
inventor worked in an observatory and needed a way to control
telescopes. It's still used for that today. I recently went looking
for FORTH processors in FPGA, there are several. One that looked
very good was designed for robotics and machine vision work. The
designer posted both the FPGA design and the software, which includes
a TCP/IP (or UDP/IP ?) stack. He reports that the code is both much
smaller and faster than compiled C code running on conventional FPGA
embedded processors.