[Noisebridge-discuss] Forth programming?

[Jacob Appelbaum]

Aleksandr Milewski wrote:
> Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
> 
>> Awesome! It seems like it should be pretty easy to make a FORTH machine
>> on a micro-controller. Perhaps some kind of embedded FORTH console for a
>> 3d printer or something? I'm not really sure if that's something that
>> would be useful but it seems like a good application. It would make
>> interfacing with a device pretty simple but perhaps too simple...
> 
> Wow, read some of the history of FORTH... It was widely used in robotics
> for a long time, and there have been a number of dedicated
> microcontrollers over the years, including one that was famously
> demonstrated mounted in a picture frame with a solar cell (and this was
> in the late 80s).

Oh, sorry. To be clear, I meant for *Noisebridge* and not as a general
statement about the history of the language. I'm not sure what practical
use *I'd* have for learning about it. I'm really learning about it for
the sake of understanding very simple languages and not because I want
to do anything practical. That's why BDFL invented Python. :-)

> 
> IIRC, the 68k had a single instruction for the inner loop of a FORTH,
> uhh, interpreter? ("Meta-compiler" was the term in vogue back in the day)
> 

Huh, interesting!

> Also... Open Firmware (Sun, PPC Macs) is FORTH.
> 

I remember that on old PPC Macs but I never really messed around with it.

> I have a soft spot for FORTH as it was the first programming language I
> learned, and my dad had a small software company called The Software
> Works that sold FORTH for CP/M and NorthStar DOS systems.
> 


My first programming language was Lisp and I've nearly forgotten all
that I've learned.

> I think that the canonical text on FORTH back in the day was Leo
> Brodie's book "Discover FORTH"

I've seen Starting FORTH and Thinking FORTH by Leo Brodie. Can you
comment on the differences between these and Discover FORTH?

Best,
Jake