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Re: Support for UT


From: Luis Commins 

[ a teeshirt ]
  (Maybe with the slogan: 'Don't RISC it, MISC it'?)

Reply from: Keith Wootten

I'll buy one, they sound too good to MISC.



From: Luis Commins

  Looks like if we want some FORTH processors, DYOP is better,
  but then, it won't bring either performance or price.

From: vic plichota

  I really *hate* to say this, but for a verrry long time, the only
  satisfactory effort that I've ever seen has been the Harris RTX,
  period.


Reply from: Keith Wootten

Are you unaware of the Patriot Scientific PSC1000 (ShBoom) processor?
It's available, (I use it with a simple Forth cross-compiler built with
Win32Forth) and has many MISC features.  Its forerunner was designed by
Chuck Moore and, while I don't know the full story, it looks as if
someone took over the design and decided to make it work in a less
quirky way.  It's a 32bit twin-stack (on-chip) machine which currently
runs at 100MHz loading four 8 bit instructions at a time.  The 10ns
instructions include *many* Forth primitives and it runs Forth very
quickly.  In addition there is a set of general purpose registers, and
the return stack can also be accessed as registers if required.  The
memory interface is very flexible, and there is also a simple on-chip
I/O processor with priority for time-critical tasks.  The device can
also run (more slowly) with 8 bit memory, and a minimum system comprises
uP, ROM, DRAM and Oscillator - no glue required. 

While I agree that we should all support Jeff - and you can count me in
for Teeshirts or Newsletters or whatever - it seems to me that, if the
PSC1000 were more widely used, there would be a smaller mental leap for
potential MISC investors.  The FPGA approach is interesting, but a
PSC1000 costs $10 in quantity - couple this with a small FPGA to handle
the peripherals, and you have one hell of a system.  It's certainly not
as powerful as MISC will hopefully be, but it's real, working,
documented Silicon which can be bought now.  Use it or - maybe - lose
it.

While supporting the development of what we would all like to see, let's
use what we already have in real products and projects.  I don't have
any connection with Patriot Scientific, but I've used the RTX2001
extensively, and know a good Forth chip when I see one.

See www.ptsc.com for details of ShBoom,  Forth inc have a commercial
compiler and show some very interesting benchmarks on their WebSite. 

Cheers
-- 
Keith Wootten