[ColorForth] colorForth ~popularity

["t" <loveall@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Moore" <chipchuck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "ColorForth List Member" <ColorForth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 6:10 AM
Subject: [ColorForth] colorForth ~popularity


> When you say no customers will consider colorForth, what flavor of Forth
> will they accept, if any?

There is a customer of mine who manufacture several lines of
Non-Destructive-Test equipment. They are running custom based Forth which I
developed for them over 10 years ago. Use 6809, 68000, 68030, 68040 and i386
CPUs. UDP networking code for all but the 6809.

They started off with with a block based address interpreter Forth but were
quite delighted when I provided ASCII text direct threaded subroutine versions
customized for each CPU. They have been doing their own Forth application
development for the last 5 years using CodeWright text editor on the PC or
vi/emacs under HPUX. Only brought me back in for fixing archane compiler bugs
which they had not encountered until just recently on a new product
development.

They were mildly interested in colorForth as a concept but are switching to
Unix/linux as a development target. Don't need specialized Forth programmers
for that, but can hire off the street. Of course they have taken 5 years to get
their first *nix based system out the door, where the Forth based products
typically take 6 months for the same functionality.

About 7 years ago their management went conservative and decided to switch over
to unix target development. They subsequently have gone from being the
technology leader who drove their market place to wannabes following the
market.

I am not aware of anyone else in the Seattle area doing Forth based product
development. For the last 4 years all of my new contract work has been
unix/linux or Windows based. Management wants common tool/language development.

Maybe I just am not a good Forth evangelist, but the market place has
definitely changed.

Regards,
Terry Loveall
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