Re: [colorforth] Dare I say ANS!

[Albert van der Horst <albert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Howerd Oakford wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I would like to make colorForth more standard. Some words make colorForth
> uneccessarily difficult for someone used to more conventional Forths :

I am kind of an expert in ISO Forth (but I contributed a macro to
easily express colorforth words in the assembler file once.)
Knowing little of colorforth I will only comment on the ISO aspect.

>
> colorForth   ANS/conventional
> --------------------------------
> -                  invert
I dislike INVERT because it very verbose, but it is ISO
Is - a monadic ( a -- ) operator in colorforth?

> copy            blk @ swap copy
There is no COPY in ISO, so you can define it to mean the same.

> pad             n/a
PAD is in ISO

> erase          erases n blocks starting at blk @
This is not true. In fact the ISO ERASE is the same than in
colorforth

> mark          gild
Don't know either word, but GILD is not ISO

> i                 i 1 -
I doubt this. How can the current loop index be
different from I. It is like saying Ilias was not written
by Homer, but by a guy of the same name. (For the
classic-impaired, we don't know anything of Homer, except
that he wrote the Ilias.)

> ?dup          ????
?DUP is ISO

> accept        ????
ACCEPT is ISO, but there may be subtle differences.

>
> I think each word must be judged individually - how about :
>
> rename - as invert
> : negate  invert 1+ ;
> : -  negate + ;
> This restores compatibility. It is interesting to note that since "invert"
> fits into 28 bits, source size is not affected.
>
> rename pad as kpad:
> It begins a list of words to execute for each key, so a ":" seems right.
> : pad 2000 block ;
> The old idea of pad is still useful, I think.
>
> rename erase as bclr ( block clear )
> : erase  ... the usual loop ... ;
>
> rename mark as gild ( do Forth, Inc. have copyright on that? ;)
>
> Make i return an index from 0 to n-1 instead of 1 to n. I presume this was
> intentional - does any one know why?
>
> ?dup - what is this?
> accept - ditto -
> use diferent names for these....
>
> I think we should use whatever the ANS form is for 1@, 2@ etc ( c@ w@ I
> think ).
> Does anyone know if "port fetch" has an ANS name? polyForth uses INPUT and
> OUTPUT, p@ and p! is fine by me.

I hope that you don't have the illusion that this will make colorforth
programs run on just any ISO system.

> Regards
> Howerd

Regards Albert.

Albert van der Horst,Oranjestr 8,3511 RA UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
        One man-hour to invent,
                One man-week to implement,
                        One lawyer-year to patent.
albert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx     http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

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