Conference hydra::amiga_v1

	I'm not sure how I feel about FORTH (it still looks kind of
	weird to my eye), but Amazing Computing has been having a
	regular series of articles on getting at the ROM routines
	from FORTH.  Unless I'm mis-remembering, the code was all
	written in Multi-FORTH.

	What do you think of FORTH in general as an implementation
	language ?  What attracted you to it ?  What do you like/hate
	about it ?  How do you like Multi-FORTH specifically ?

	Happy FORTHing,
	 Art

    I've been waiting a while to respond to reply 1, to see if anyone
    else had any interest.  I guess not.  It kills me that we can go
    on for 12 replies about turning the system on or off, but almost
    nobody is discussing any programming!  One of the reasons I bought
    this thing is to write some dazzling software, no mean feat for
    a hardware engineer.  Please, if anyone out there in NotesLand is
    doing anything in Forth on the Amiga, help me!  
    
    Sorry about that.  Just had to get it off my chest.
    
    Anyway, back to Arts questions.  I like Forth.  It is such that
    one incrementally builds an application by extending the language
    itself.  You can test as you go, in small pieces.  Its usually fast,
    and produces small code.  I can't remember what attractted me to
    it.  I like Multi-forth because the support is superb, and since
    the make Mac-forth I don't think the comapny will evaporate.  The
    manual's pretty good, but has that annoying word-processor character,
    such as a global substitute of "Multi-Forth" for "forth"; a beginner
    to the language might get the impression that these guys invented
    it.  All in all a real bargain at $89.00 direct from Creative
    Solutions.  
    
    So lets go!  Anyone interested in discussing forth, or even language
    independent Amiga specific programming, I'm game.
    
    Regards,	John

    
    The problem with programming is the amount of time it takes to get
    those dazzling effects debugged.  I've been getting lots of
    unintentional dazzling effects while writing a picture format
    converter in C.  Writing beyond the end of arrays can cause really
    strange things to happen.
    
    Or did you mean intentional dazzling effects? :-)
    
    I don't know what the FORTH equivalent of that is, but if you do
    a random bit spray thru low memory, I'm sure you will get some
    interesting effect before it gurus.
                                       
    -Dave
   

    Re: .2
    
    No, you're not the only one interested in FORTH. It's definitely
    my favourite small-machine language. I hacked some MultiFORTH last
    year at school, but haven't touched it since, mostly because
    of this all-too-common disease I've got called getting-home-after-
    10-plus-hours-of-sitting-in-front-of-a-computer-and-feeling-not-
    the-slightest-bit-anxious-to-sit-down-in-front-of-another-one
    (GHATPHOSIFOACAFNTSBATSDIFOAO's syndrome).
    
    However, just this week a friend gave me the sources to an incredible
    FORTH debugger he wrote (sort of like DDT with windows) for the
    800 (that's Atari for you young'uns), and it's my responsibility
    to port it to Amy. So I guess I'll soon start hacking FORTH again.
    You need not feel alone anymore!
    
    ^E

I did some Forth on the VIC-20 years ago. It's an interesting language - 
From what I remember it's similar to a reverse-polish calculator. Stack
oriented in that everything (numerical) you do is done on a stack.

I found it to be rather tedious as compared to C or even Macro, but that was
VIC-Forth.  Has it changed? I know there was a standard being developed by
some people out west (US).

My biggest delemma right now is finding a decent editor. I'm so used to 
EDT/TPU that I find it hard to get used to another one. (I tried UEdit
and now I'm waiting for uEMACS to come in the mail (FF120?))

John

    Here is another forth user, better a JFORTH user.
    I started using Forth some years ago when discovered  ( on
    a C64 ) that splitting a screen to have graphic and crt windows
    took just a couple of lines.
    Since then I have used it extesively, even if very seldom with
    a real goal to reach. It's a fantastic hacker's tool.
    
    I'm very interested in the debug tool that has been mentioned (.4?)
    and I'm willing to contribute to the porting. Some of the thing
    I've done so far with JFORTH:
    
    * A strigs package, with automatic length check
    * A 'shell' to have capability of recalling previous lines	and
    	to edit them ( no command, obviously for those who know
    	Forth)
    * A new version of Vlist ( with colum alignement).
    
    JFORTH is really interesting. It's VERY fast. 2,3 times faster
    than MULTI-forth. I also have MVP-Forth, a pubblic domain forth,
    not bad but far from JFORTH. One of the best thing is that
    you can call all amiga-functions and libs by name.
    
    For those who don't know forth.
    
    What it is. Forth is a religion. So, be carefull in making
    comments :-)

    Its easy to learn and to use. The big advantage is that requires
    a top-down analysis of the problem and a bottom-up implementation.
    Then you start writing your WORDS ( routines ) and you can
    debug them immediately, one at a time. And you don't need to
    compile it !!
    
    JFORTH does someting special. Instead of JSRing to the old
    words, if their length is below MAX-IN-LINE value ( user assigned)
    it copies the old word into the new one. It's memory consuming
    but fast. After all CHIPS are CHEAP !
    
    If someone want to start with forth, I suggest Leo Brodie's
    book: Starting FORTH. Easy and well written. You can really
    enjoy readin it !