[ColorForth] Chuck and Browser philosophy

[Jeff Fox <fox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

begin

"Kurt B. Kaiser" wrote:

A very nice post with very intersting observation about 
browsers and all the stuff they do today. A perfect
lead in for something long but which I think may
change the way some people see a lot of this stuff. :-)

Visiting the present UltraTechnology website requires
stuff now that we never had in the iTV browser on a
chip very much line mine. I often used our latest build
to look at my site as one test those years back when.

Kurt mentioned 6 things beyond what we had in our
system, although we did have two image formats GIF
and JPEG on various low res display devices back then.

What amazed me was that the perception that all 6 and etc.
are really needed is really only there for people who
already are using PC so our test subjects and our
customer's sample test subjects in the US and foreign
countries who did not have PC experience and expections
coming in were delighted and seemingly perfectly satisfied
with barely more than one level above browsing on other
PDA.  What further amazed me was that most of the
test subjects in the US who DID have PC experience
and DID have PC expections loved it and many said
that they prefered it.  I was kind of amazed.

I mean I understand that there are billions of people
chomping at their bit to get exactly exactly what we
made, perfect for most of the world where a plain
old dailup modem telephone line and a tiny B/W
TV makes you the rich guy in town.  The idea that
these people could go online and be the first
around to get the web and email was apparently 
what billions wanted.

Phase 1:
Since they were talking about 100 million in this
country, and 100 million there to TRY THEM OUT,
(and all market research showed they loved them)
and if they liked them then buy 20 times as many
this would have meant that PCs would not be
playing catchup because 2 or 3 billion people
would come online dictating the new standards
that the market needed to let the PCs provide
access to the new internet and let the $2
machines move toward all those standards that
people like now, but done to new specs that
will work on $2 computers.  

Right $2 really just can't do everything that
$1000 down to the $1000 specs, the present
interent specs are just as bloated as everything
else TODAY, of course they are!  But if you have
2 billion potential customers online you know 
happens, the internet stardards suddenly evolve in 
your direction and to merge the PCs now have to
chase you, the crowd, the customers, the market.

Merging for the most part just means improved
versions of what they are doing now in some
cases and a whole new approach in others,
but $1000 machines are powerful enough to do
it, just some software is needed, easy.

Now think about this...  this is where I start
to get excited about how colorForth SHOULD
fit into this picture.

The iTV settop box, and internet TV, and handheld
had the same tiny almost disposable appliance
module.  The managment at iTV felt that Chuck
was crazy to do things like colorForth,
certifiable, but they tolerated some of it
as long as he just stuck to CAD and made
them the chips that they wanted to market.

They would not allow the software to be
written as I felt it should in that in 
many many cases in the early design phase
my recommendatations were not taken.  I
think what I wanted was fairly close to
what Chuck would have done at the time.
That's probably another reason why iTV 
didn't like those choices.

I have managed before, can wear a suit,
and deal with many compromises.  We got a
traditional threaded Forth, an ANS Forth
variation, with MachineForth as the
equivalent of the assembler for CODEd words.

Half the modules were written in ANS and
the other half MachineForth with an odd
mix of in-house and consultant that managment
dictated.  MachineForth modules averaged about 1K.
ANS averaged about 25K.  We had about 200K total
and about 16 modules.  I felt that if we had
all done MachineForth it would have been about
30K total. 

Chuck is actually very familiar with that software
as he listened as we discussed it each weak
for years and every problem that it had.  Second
time around with Chuck making an effort to first
boil down the design spec to how HE would do it.
Then have him implement it in a 2K say on
his hardware ColorForth and what would the
base broswer, w/ compiler and $2-internet-colorForth
scripting, and all the other iTV type features be?
16K? 10K? Who knows?  That's really not important
except to visualize that what that is.  It is a few
K of code that totally redefines the interenet.


Phase 2:
In phase 2 when all the expensive routers
are replace with a $2-internet-colorForth routers.
Now TCP/IP is dead. Cook the specs Chuck!
Now you have a net with 4 or 5 billion people, 
using $2 equipment and this new internet
is built on with *sane* specifications.  And
everyone who wants to play is using the same
absurdly tiny and simple and easy
$2-internet-colorForth operating system.

It can easily load any extension, just 
like a helper, but instead of it being
like it is it is just instantly
compiling a tiny amount of colorForth
for any helper, ANY of a million variations,
all simple, fast, fun, with clean specs,
easy to implement etc.

And they are using it right also. For one
thing... Chuck's hardware enforces good
programming practices. (no details for now)
and it is so easy to learn that anyone
more or less can understand everything.

I mean everyone is always picturing
EVERYTHING constrained by the idea that
at best you can only ever really change
less than 0.0001% of ANYTHING because
everything is so damn dependent on
everything else. 

I mean when other programmers, Forth or
whatever, sit down for the most part
they can't change the CPU archecture
to have no fat.  They cannot change
the motherboard chipset so that there
is no fat.  They cannot change the BIOS,
the OS, the GUI.  They cannot change
the compiler or the language. 

They can't change the internet specs,
they can't change the disk specs,
they can't change app specs.  
They can't see any way to change
any of that.

They can't change.

But they can.  Chuck showed that everything
can change.  99.999% of the details
that everyone thinks are "locked in" now
are not locked in.

What? You think that there is real 3 dimensional
reality?  Physical objects cannot do things
like occupy the same space and time?  Folks
that stuff ain't real!  Study some quantum
philosopy, pick one at random ;-)  Study
some Zen.  Try thinking about it.

If the 3 dimensional world in your illusion
and linear time and connected space and
all those things that look so obvious
to us apes ain't real then do we REALLY
believe that these limitations that
everyone sees about no one can change
anything ever are also an illusion?

In complex adaptive systems the tiniest
change can transform everything.  Just
like my coming out of a depression this
week.  pop.  Oh, boy I landed in the
right spot on the landscape of quantum
uncertainly this time!

Literally - anything is possible!

Making a few K of ubiquitous code in 
$2-internet-colorForth on billions of 
platform changes things.

? colorForth IS Chuck's personal language.
Very personal. Forth started out as his
personal language.  But I am willing to bet
that I am describing the colorForth that
Chuck has been talking to use about.

Yes, he does encourage others to write their
own colorForth.  He encourages people to think
and think critically and a lot before coding
anything.  He loves it when people learn to
do that and teach him something that he
hadn't come accross yet himself.  He won't
use your code of course, but he loves to
take the idea in your code and use it
in his improved version.  

Vision #1:
Many people think Chuck is crazy. That being
crazy is bad. Period.

Vision #2:
Most people see Chuck's colorForth as really
HIS Pentium tool for his use and as an example
for how some people can also make their own
tools that only they can use and this little
group will help each other out, but not very
well, cause nothing is really very compatible.

#1 are not bothering with us.  You are mostly
#2 I suspect.   now...

My vision:
Chuck has shown us what Forth is.  We know,
use the right words, factor well, factor
factor, factor.  Right, we all know this.
Every ANS Forth programmer knows this...
But none of them actually are doing this.

The Forth I got from working with Chuck
is an approach that is ultimately simple.
It's all exactly the same.  Make it so simple that
no errors are possible, spend the time
up front, cook the fat out in the specs,
in the code, in the documentation, in
the hardware.  

Computers are hardware/software and now Forth IS
in the 21st Century, a few K of code and few
transistors that costs $2 is internet ready,
looks almost exactly like Chuck's colorForth
on Pentium or some variation (and he can make
large improvements to his design today on us)
isn't Chuck's "personal tool" really at all.

No.  It is a poem.  Read the specs over
about one million times and everything
that I was saying above is all there
between the lines and unwritten.

Now me.  I have to explain it over and
over and over and still I don't get it.
I doubt if many other people do either.
I doubt if many can even read what I
post since I have some real weak
points in my Forth....

So when Chuck would give me, literally,
a page of specs that I asked for 
about whatever.  I read it over and
over.  I translate it into a 50 page
semi-conventional looking document.
Most of my site's readers say that
it is too impenetrable, too suptile,
too dependent on already knowing
too much other stuff.  To dependent
on already knowing everything that
they can't make sense of it.

I say read it 100 times.  They say
it doesn't help.

I rewrite it into 500 pages in what
looks like a "for dummies", not to
be too insulting I hope, to me.
For the most part most readers
still say the same thing as they
did about the second version.

Some percentage do get it.  I never
know it they found "it" on version 3,
version 2, or if anyone after
starting to get worked their way
back to Chuck's one page that
said everything that tried to say
in each more complex version and
couldn't really because it was
getting more and more complex.  ;-)

See a pattern here?

THIS is what I call 21st century
Forth.  It is more than a language,
it is a approach.  All aspects from
hardware to software to docs to specs
to the plans are the same.  Cook 
out all the stuff that you really
don't want to eat and make into you.
(to be a bit metaphorical.)

IF you get what I am saying.  IF the bulb
lights up.  IF you pop into my universe
instead of the parallel one that you are
in now, then suddenly you see almost everything
that everyone always says about Forth and
especially Chuck is EXACTLY ASS BACKWARDS!
Even many of you were seeing things backards.

It is so simple really. Really grasping that
just as in the beginning, the secret, the
true power, the magic behind Forth is that
Forth is so simple that it can't be wrong.

The idea that colorForth is a wonderful but
bizzare quirky thing for Chuck and few
people and that no one can share more than
a tiny percent of anything is no different
than thinking that no one can ever change
anything ever because everything is all
this mess of complexity and if you change
anything it all breaks.

Zen philosphy:
Break it. Break down your own mind and illusions
and put it back together using Forth.  What
happens?  

Well as we know its ultimately simple because
its all exactly the same, its so simple that
it has to be right.  After you cook out the
crap and run the hardware with efficient
software inside of you head you see the
same improvement on that Forth computer,
the mechanical one made of carbon atoms
as you did on the other mechanical one
made of silicon atoms.

Since atoms are not real anyway its all
the same.  Boot up a copy of colorForth
in your head.  It's fun.  It's colorful.
It's powerful.  Think like Chuck.
Look inside of his head.  Do you see
anything like the vision that I described?

That's the idea that I have of
colorForth.  Read it again and the
parts might fit together for you better
the next time.  (right like I can't
write or talk your ears off, now I
am telling you to endure it again!)

Got-all? Fed-up? or until
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