[ColorForth] Toys (was USB and other serial bit boffing)

["Kurt B. Kaiser" <kbk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Myron Plichota wrote:
.....................
> I cherish the notion that someday I will be running a simple but powerful
> "toy" computer with the best ideas we have seen implemented, but with a
> simple, consistent, efficient, and direct interface to the hardware and base
> software. Jeff's stories about single afternoon MachineForth orientation
> briefings for programmers at iTV and the resulting immediate productivity
> are an excellent case in point.
> 
> This is impossible when relying on commodity PCs to provide the hardware:
> it dooms the software to endless complications. What is wrong with the idea
> of designing something that resembles a Jupiter Ace (Timex/Sinclair
> TS-1000 aka ZX-81 with Forth in ROM), 

Back in those days I actually implemented a ROM emulator between a ZX-81 and my
Apple II running a CP/M card. I was in the process of writing a ROM Forth to
replace the Basic when Timex hit the fan. Oh well.

> keeping it simple, and providing the
> hooks for individual users to take the ball and run in whatever direction
> they choose?
>
> The combined and individual expertise of the membership on this list is
> impressive. If we invested half the time and money it takes to cope with
> industry standards that inherently do not serve our purposes, we could 
> thrash out a consensus on the base hardware and software, implement it, 
> replicate and distribute copies to the investing contributors, and kiss the > monopolies, moving targets, etc. goodbye forever.

It would be great if it could be based on a Forth CPU. As far as thrash out
consensus goes, I'm afraid that will be difficult, unless the consensus was
restricted to a simple list of requirements.

The way things seem to work is that success requires that one person, or a
small, like-thinking team, has to implement the first example. Things then
evolve. Look at Forth, Unix, CP/M, Linux, Lisp, APL, Apple II, etc. etc.  These
were not done by committee.  As an example of what happens by committee, look
at LispOS, an attempt to write a system in Lisp down to the metal. After a year
of endless discussion, nothing had been accomplished. Then a student at Utah
implemented Scheme on top of Flux in just a few hours. Instead of picking up
that work, the discussion on the list just ceased at that point. 
 
> As one who has been exposed to endless sophistication in computer hardware
> and software design, I still value simplicity above all, and I presume this
> attitude is common among the list membership, otherwise why subscribe? The
> dialog is rife with examples that indicate that this is so.
> 
> What this world needs is a good $500 "toy" workstation-class Forth computer
> that preserves the elegant simplicity of the well-recognized niche of
> embedded Forth systems. To hell with "me too" reliance on off the shelf
> hardware. It is here today, gone tomorrow. Forget USB, PCI, FireWire etc.
> Think fibre optics or LVDS ring instead for peripheral and multiprocessor
> interfacing.

You mention on your site that you've never heard of someone building a 386,
much less a Pentium, computer by hand, probably because of the timing issues. I
agree these are greatly alleviated by using highspeed serial, instead of
parallel busses to communicate off-chip. But you still need agreement on
protocols for the links.

> The axiom "never re-invent the wheel" is seductive, misleading, and
> hypocritical: the PC industry does it continuously and then presents us with
> the new world order! We wind up trying to cope with _someone else's_ wheel
> complete with broken spokes and eccentricity when it would be so much 
> simpler to turn our own wheels on lathes that we also built ourselves.

The industry struggles with the "need" to run faster and faster in larger
memory spaces, though at the current time they are having some trouble selling
high end systems because people don't really need the performance.

The problem is the changes are done piecemeal so we, who are not interested in
the PC hardware per se, have to constantly upgrade protocols and drivers since
the old hardware quickly disappears from the shelves.

If we do something like you're suggesting, how do we guarantee the availability
of the key components over a long period of time? If iTV was in production
you'd be all set, as I assume they would freeze the chip for many years.

Another possibility is to use processors which have high use in embedded
systems, they tend to stay in production for a long time.

How much do the parts for a Steamer16 cost?

Regards, KBK
-- 
   K u r t    B.   K a i s e r
   k b k @@ s h o r e .. n e t
------------------------------
------------------------

To Unsubscribe from this list, send mail to Mdaemon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with:
unsubscribe ColorForth
as the first and only line within the message body
Problems   -   List-Admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Main ColorForth site   -   http://www.colorforth.com