Re: [colorforth] Booting from HDD

["Jeff Fox" <fox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Please do not misunderstand me -- I am very grateful for the work you
> all are doing on colorForth for the PC.  I'm just curious how all of
> you view the whole colorForth on PC issue, since it is obvious that
> Chuck's goal was to say "good riddance" to the PC ASAP.  Most of the
> posts I see on this mailing list are about colorForth for the PC.

That's because colorforth has mostly been a PC thing. There has been
some colorforth like stuff for the F21 and ipaq but most people have
PC and will run colorforth on some flavor of PC.

> Perhaps it would be a different story if we have access to some of
> the new chips/usb drives.  I'm just confused why this emphasis on
> PC colorForth when it was meant for/could do much more on a modern
> Forth processor?

Chuck stayed with Intel processors for CAD while he had expressed
an interest in P21 being able to host a CAD system that could
design P21.  P21/F21 systems were barely big enough to host the
P21 or F21 designs directly.  And given the restrictions on P21
and the small number of F21 and I21 made the to go a scalable
die technology multiple c18 Chuck chose create okad II and do
it in colorforth.

He continues to say that okad is the best example of what a
Forth program can do and what it looks like relative to other
programs.  And naturally he is proud of okad and what has been
done with okad as well. And with all the people using colorforth
at IntellaSys to enhance colorforth/okad and chip designs Chuck
is very happy with it.

The first things he coded for the first prototype chips were
components he will use in SEAforth colorforth.  Until he has
created a colorforth for his own chips and ported the cad
software he and others will be using the PC colorforth for
all the purposes it is being used now and probably others.

The closest thing to a colorforth on a Forth chip so far
was the aha system, desktop and compiler.  But I never
implemented a full colorforth with a color based editor
and gui.  It will be fun to have a colorforth on forth
chips when that is available.

I do ANS Forth on a Pentium or Arm or P21 or SEAforth,
mostly Pentium.  I do machine Forth on P21, f21, and
c18 systems.  I do something like colorforth on F21 and
coloforth on Pentium.  I expect I will get a colorforth
forth chip pc soon after Chuck.  But until then I do
enjoy doing PC colorforth as much as I do.

Of the various Forth environments I use I find colorforth
the most fun.  It is a hard thing to quantify but it does
have a different feel to it.  I enjoy working with it.
If I didn't work with it I might spend time playing with
it.

I have said that people often get stuck on getting colorforth
to run.  And that to the interesting part are the similarities
to Forth chips more than the Pentium details.  But thankfully
there are other people who are more interested in getting
the Pentium details sorted out.  And it is a long path from
the first colorforth to a Forth chip colorforth designed
to replace PC colorforth.  The first Forth chip colorforth
I would picture would be more like P21Forth or Aha.  It
would be a SEAforth implementation and much smaller than
a Pentium PC implemenation.

I expect it will be a while before we see anything on the
scale of a Pentium PC made of Forth chips.  It will be fun
when we get there.  And getting there requires colorforth
and will be fun.

Well, that's my $.02(processor)'s worth.

Best Wishes




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