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Re: [colorforth] if then else - but why is there no ‘else’ in colorForth?

Evening Nick,

This discussion has given me the confidence to improve
some recent "iffing" in my program.  But I must confess
that, as a humble hobbyist, I cannot follow any
language
in the abstract (not even my native Anglisch; after
70 years I still cannot tell what parts are grammar and
what parts are syntax). The same with CF: I know what I
want my hardware to do, I look for suitable words in
CF, like if and then, and test them with simple
numerical examples until the combine to do what I want.
I had to look up Anglisch; not heard of that before. Hmm, seems to have been a large influence on English. Sorry: ignorant Brit. I've just looked up syntax too, and I didn’t realise that that was separate from ‘grammar’. I wonder if when old home computers used to say “syntax error” that perhaps “grammar error” might have been more accurate sometimes. 
"Simple" can be deceptive, as you say, and take hours;
but there are no hidden paths and everything (that I
can understand) lies nicely to hand. The factoring that
you mention is part of the charm: using 2 stubby little
words instead of 1 big portmanteau word (like the
difference between modern Enlish and classical Greek).
But still why is that better? But I know: I'll just have to wait until I find a real example to see. 
What I really need to understand (in a practical way) is
all those words in CF05 re USB, or some   Tim /Ray
/Howerd blocks on networking.  I don't mind floppy r/w
being slow; but I have 2 computers, each running CF,
but neither will read the other's floppy. However, they can read each other's memory cards. At 
present I transfer the one floppy to USB stick (via
Linux dd) then take this stick over to the other
computer and there build a new floppy (again via Linux
dd) which the other computer can then r/w and boot
from. I guess CF can r/w/boot from USB in principle
(and from net also?), but I fear that I might not have
enough hours /days /months /years ahead of me to work
out how.  I am always happy pass on my own little stock
of tips and annotations (eg, on PCI). If any CForther
here has some tips on USBoot, then I would be glad to
ponder them; else I shall just have to hope that my new
floppy drive lasts.
That’s what I want too. I'm working through the CF05 USB blocks, but I'm having to work out each word in each definition, which takes one to other blocks and the kernel (as I know you know) so it’s very slow, but exceedingly good fun. In fact I’ve not had such fun with computers since the days of ZX81s and BBCs (I saw a Jupiter Ace in a shop once, but just thought it was really weird back then).
Anyway, I’d just got up to ‘fr’ and so had to get to grips with ‘if then’, but as this isn’t for money I want to understand it fully—there’s no boss leaning over me saying ‘just get it to work’.
Floppy is perfect for me as I'm only using 6 cylinders, but my current CF computer is on its last legs and the others don’t boot this version of CF (2.0a is too slow to boot for me native) so I would like to get a USB floppy booting. I know this sounds crazy, but floppies are cheap and easy to file away. If I could get that far (which I know will require changing the boot sector) then I think USB flash booting would be little change.
There’s much to find out as it seems there are three protocol implementations and half a dozen command sets and it’s all quite nebulous to me at present. 

Is USBoot something in CF2.0a?

Jason



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