HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Martin Ertl)
Subject: Re: Foreign Language Interface
Organization: Technical University Vienna
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 18:04:11 GMT

In article <3297.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>,
 dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips) writes:
|> In article <1992Mar19.193951.7963@email.tuwien.ac.at>
|> 	anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Martin Ertl) writes:
...
|> +However, this is a hard nut. While it is easy to specify calls from other
|> + languages to Forth and vice versa, complex data (i.e. structs or objects)
|> + pose problems. Most languages leave the layout unspecified, so how do we
|> + build them portably? The only solution I can come up is: select a few
|> + languages and provide equivalents of their data type definitions in Forth.
|> + Any better idea?
|> 
|> I think that that is a non-issue.  Inter-language interfaces don't really
|> belong in the ANSI Forth standard document.

Why not? Not even a Forth/C or Forth/Fortran interface?

|>  It is beyound the scope of
|> the standard to specifiy how other languages do procedure/function call,
|> parameter passing, etc.

I agree.
To clarify my position:
We cannot use the usual Forth words (@,!,c@,c!,+,cells,chars) to portably
 access complex data from other languages, because the layout may differ
 between machines.

Therefore we need words that enable us to access foreign language data.
 These words would hide the actual layout from us. (Of course their
 implementation would be machine-dependent). One possibility is to use
 words for defining those complex data types of the foreign language.

|> Personally I think that such linkages actually
|> form an ADT and as such there should be a group of words that implement
|> that ADT by doing whatever machinations are required in order to get
|> the data/control-flow out of Forth and into whatever else.  Now, to have
|> a standard way to specify the Forth half (Such as the name of the foreign
|> function, and which parts of which stacks are relevant parameters...).

If I understand you, you and I are proposing the same thing.

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl                    Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
From: toma@sail.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Non-Forth systems/languages.
Date: 9 Apr 92 14:50:34 GMT
Reply-To: toma@sail.labs.tek.com
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <3224.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>, Ray Duncan writes:

>   >I believe there is a way to resize a file in MS-DOS, although the
>   >way is at least partially undocumented

> The capability to resize a file is documented and it has been present
> ever since the "handle"-oriented file functions were added in MS-DOS
> 2.0.  The method is: seek to the desired new file size with Int 21H
> Function 42H, then issue a "write" operation of ZERO bytes length using
> Int 21H Function 40H.  This is patterned exactly after the ability to
> resize a file under UNIX using the 'write' function.

Sorry Ray, while you are correct (of course) about MS-DOS, the zero-length
write trick does not come from UNIX. In UNIX you truncate files with
ftruncate (for open file descriptors) or truncate (for file names).
IMHO UNIX has the cleaner approach since you don't have to special case
(and ignore) zero-length writes.

(Note that my comments apply at least through 4.2BSD, and might not, but
probably does, apply to System V).




-- 
Tom Almy
toma@sail.labs.tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: for us beginners?  Help
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:12:58 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-07-92 (17:03)              Number: 31000 of 31006
   To: GARY SMITH                    Refer#: 30958
 From: ANIL RODRIX                     Read: NO
 Subj: FOR US BEGINNERS?  HELP       Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 To Joel Jacobsen: ( Usenet)
 Re: WITHIN
 Looks like the second ROT in your code needs to be either a -ROT or
 two ROTs, to take the flag on top of sttack to third position , before
 the second comparison > .

 PCRelay:PROPC -> #288 RelayNet (tm)
 4.11             Pittsburgh ProPC BBS (412) 321-6645
 <<<>>>

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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Graphics, GUIs, and Events
Date: 13 Apr 92 12:08:40 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 33
Message 10        Mon Apr 13, 1992
B.DUNN5 [Brian]              at 04:10 EDT
 
 
 On reinventing wheels in graphics, and preexisting standards:

 If we can agree on simple things such declaring and opening a window, drawing
things, and coordinate spaces, this is a needed step and would alone be very
useful.  If someone could make a small Forth wordset which adds these XPHIGS
3D words on top, that'd be wonderful.


 For real aspect ratio:

 A simple */ should take care of this, and it would be invisible to the user
of the graphics wordset, since we can all write programs assuming pixels are
square and the screen is 16K wide, and the internal code can take care of the
actual case.


 I notice ANS Forth tends to use hyphenated-words whereas I was using
underscored_words.  Any graphics semi-standard might as well use whatever ANS
uses.  ( I used to use dotted.words and now use _s...  Now they say to use -
's... )

 I was out of town for a while so it'll be a few more days before the first
run of my own graphics standard wordset for Atari ST is posted on GEnie.  It
seems that a bunch of comments and examples might be more useful to anyone
porting this than attempting to factor out system dependent things.


 Reply to ANIL RODRIX:

 My own particular Atari ST Forth is a homemade Forth-83ish subroutine
threaded edge optimized native code compiled 32bit 68000 metacompiled Forth,
which previously was a 32bit token threaded metacompiled Forth, which was
written in CSI's Multi-Forth, which was written in C from what I hear, which
is probably written in assembly language or another C.  I threaded the
dictionary ala F83 to get rid of Multi-Forth's dreadfully slow compilation
time, replaced their LOCALS| with a better locals scheme, kept their GEM
interfaces and floating point ( which is really from Motorola anyhow ), am
doing windows from GEM scratch right now, and replaced almost everything else
( arrays of tasks are fun ).

 For ST hacking I tend to use the Abacus Internals book and a GEM programming
book.  5 or so years ago, it was a nice machine.  Now, it's time for a
68030...


 Sysop on GEnie: some replies from ForthNet to this thread are being posted in
a graphics topic in cat 3, whereas the thread itself is in cat 10, top 33. Of
course it's nice that they are making it through in the first place, so who
can complain!

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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth in the Marketplace
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:09:32 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 2,  Topic 11
Message 107       Tue Apr 14, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 21:54 EDT
 
FIG doesn't need to distribute a free Forth in order to teach.  It can teach
ANS Forth, if it sees fit!

Phil, in case you've missed it, there's been an *extensive* discussion of
"what business FIG is really in" up under Cat 1 Top 2, including whether it's
a good idea for it to distribute systems.

I suspect FIG would love to hear from you & everyone else what business you'd
*like* to see it be in.
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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Graphics
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:02 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-07-92 (16:51)              Number: 30998 of 31006
   To: B.DUNN5 [BRIAN]               Refer#: 30953
 From: ANIL RODRIX                     Read: NO
 Subj: GRAPHICS, GUIS, AND EVENT     Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 I think I saw your suggested graphics commands list a while back , and
 to one who's not deep into those things it seemed reasonable.
 What Forth are you using on the Atari ST ? I would like to get into the
 innards of the machine but dont quite know how to start ( didnt think it
 worth 350 to splurge on the developers kit just for fun ).

 PCRelay:PROPC -> #288 RelayNet (tm)
 4.11             Pittsburgh ProPC BBS (412) 321-6645
 <<<>>>
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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth Dimensions - the FIG journal
Date: 8 Apr 92 12:34:01 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 5
Message 15        Tue Mar 31, 1992
ELLIOTT.C                    at 22:25 EST
 
Len, re our discussion on Kelly's FD article and the line of description of
riForth "SS=RP" - What happens to the machine stack???
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From: Interface!b0b@overmind.mind.org
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: hence4th availability
Date: 6 Apr 92 09:00:00 GMT
Organization: North California
X-mailer: Stadel 3.4a-227
X-Spam-content: irrelevant


   dwilson@cs.ulowell.edu -- HENCE4TH.ARC is available at Interface BBS, in 
the Forth room.  Dial 707-544-9661 at 2400 bps.
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth language vendors
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:13 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-06-92 (23:16)              Number: 30983 of 30984 (Echo)
   To: E.RATHER [ELIZABETH]          Refer#: 30960
 From: JACK WOEHR                      Read: NO
 Subj: FORTH VENDORS GROUP           Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 -> The Forth Vendors Group exists technically; I am its President.  It
 -> has a small bank balance, which it has used as a clearing house for
 -> paying X3J14 clerical expenses (mailings, etc.) while members &
 -> observers were billed.  The objective is to break even.  It has been
 -> inactive for at least 5 years because, IMHO, none of the vendors had
 -> time to make it do anything useful.

         Maybe now's the time to give it something to do: like,
 f'rinstance, standardize THROW codes which the TC is unable to do
 effectively from Olympus.

                 =jax=

 NET/Mail : RCFB Golden, CO (303) 278-0364 VESTA & Denver FIG for Forth!
 <<<>>>

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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Feedback to the Forth Interest Group
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:12:53 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 175       Fri Apr 10, 1992
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 22:37 EDT
 
Re: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips)

 > I guess the question boils down to "what does it mean for FIG to
 > compete with vendors?".  In my mind, if FIG is supplying
 > software/manuals for a system (regardless of where FIG originally
 > got it), and if that material is similar to material available
 > from a vendor, then FIG is competing with a vendor.

I don't see _distribution_ in the same light as I see _production_. In other
words, I think FIG can and should distribute information and whatever material
it can get its hands on about every Forth it can, but I draw the line when FIG
would produce or endorse one Forth in deference to all the others.  I.e. I
don't want to see another FIG Forth.

 > I agree with Stephen Pelc, in article
 >  <1992Mar15.162735.23884@demon.co.uk> spelk@cix.compulink.co.uk
 > (MPE Ltd) writes:
 >     .......
 > +but also has its dangers. If FIG is to be seen to be independent,
 > +then it must be completely detached from ALL vendors, including
 > +Silicon Composers and Offete Enterprises. Visible detachment
 > +might also improve the advertising revenues!

I would then add F-PC, F83, Pygmy, eForth, etc. (and MPE BTW) to that list. 
How can FIG be "independent" and still call itself a Forth Interest Group? 
What I am hearing here is that all that FIG should be concerned with is public
domain Forths.  Well folks, that is only a _very_ small part of the Forth
industry.  Also, just who is supposed to be buying that advertising if vendors
are excluded?

 > To state it bluntly:  Is FIG a "Forth" advocacy group or a "Forth
 > vendors A, B, ... , C" advocacy group?

I see it as the former and I would no sooner promote any one vendor or group
of vendors than I would promote any one public domain Forth.  Forth is Forth
and I don't care if you are using Stoic or Yerk or polyFORTH or MacForth or
anything in between, the philisophy of Forth is still there and I think FIG
should be there both to help promote the use of those languages and to help
the users of them. IMHO, to ignore any segment of this varied market is to
isolate us from its advances.

   {B-{)>   DaR
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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Feedback to the Forth Interest Group
Date: 8 Apr 92 12:33:57 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-04-92 (13:00)              Number: 30939 of 30954 (Echo)
   To: GARY SMITH                    Refer#: 30860
 From: RAY DUNCAN                      Read: NO
 Subj: FEEDBACK TO THE FORTH INT     Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

   > I reply:
   > I remember Mike Perry once wryly remarking that a certain company
   > had made considerably more money out of F83 than he had, and that
   > he would think twice about doing a PD Forth again.

 Before any of you shed TOO many tears over Mike Perry, there are a
 couple of FACTS that should be appended to this statement.

 First, I was personally present at a meeting at the San Francisco
 Computer Faire in 1983 or 1984 where Mike Perry and Henry Laxen
 gave source listings for F83 to at least a dozen Forth
 vendors and ENCOURAGED them to release systems based on F83.  If Mike
 Perry now regrets that other people made money off his work, he has
 no one but himself to blame.

 Second, and perhaps more importantly, I know of NO VENDOR (at least
 in the US) who actually based a system on F83 and made any money at
 it.  F83 was so slow and klunky, and its metacompiler was so fragile,
 that it couldn't possibly serve as the foundation for a successful
 commercial system.  I know that here at LMI we took a careful look at
 F83 and decided that it wasn't worth our time to even try to work
 with it. We did adopt a few *word definitions* out of the F83
 glossary that appeared to be new and useful -- SKIP and SCAN come
 immediately to mind -- but we didn't use any part of the F83
 *implementation*.

 NET/Mail : LMI Forth Board, Los Angeles, CA (310) 306-3530
 <<<>>>

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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Graphics
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:04 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 3,  Topic 15
Message 85        Thu Apr 09, 1992
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 22:43 EDT
 
Thanks for the info, Elizabeth.  Is it a coincidence that the Forth Vendors
Group has been inactive for about as long as X3J14 has been active?  :-)

Brad Rodriguez
 B.RODRIGUEZ2 on GEnie   |   bradford@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
 So many projects....so little time.


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From: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Regular postings, lost mail...
Date: 7 Apr 92 12:23:13 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Since willett was done on the 1st, the regularly scheduled postings didn't
go out.  I also lost the disk on which mail was stored, so if you sent
a FNEAS request before the 1st, and haven't by now gotten a reply, please
resend it.  I apologize for the inconvenience.

-Doug
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Preferred:  dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us	Ok:  {pitt,sei}!willett!dwp
From: wmb@pi.Eng.Sun.COM (Mitch Bradley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Feedback to the Forth Interest Group
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:04:56 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: mitch

>   > I remember Mike Perry once wryly remarking that a certain company
>   > had made considerably more money out of F83 than he had, and that
>   > he would think twice about doing a PD Forth again.

> If Mike Perry now regrets that other people made money off his work,
> he has no one but himself to blame.

I don't believe Mike regrets that other people have made money from
his work; I think he regrets not having made much money on it himself.
The distinction is subtle but important.  Mike has discovered that
releasing something to the public domain makes it difficult to implement
a workable business plan.

I am one of the vendors who has made a considerable amount of money from
Mike Perry's work.  Some of my products are based on the 68000 F83
implementation.  I have added a lot of value on top of that implementation,
and the implementation has diverged substantially from its roots, but the
F83 heritage is definitely visible in the Forthmacs source code.

Sun's Open Boot firmware (> 500,000 copies and counting) is built on
Forthmacs, and can thus trace its ancestry back to F83.

Mike is a good friend of mine, and I have never sensed any resentment
about the fact that I have made money from a product based on F83.

> Second, and perhaps more importantly, I know of NO VENDOR (at least
> in the US) who actually based a system on F83 and made any money at it.

See counterexample above.  Admittedly, Forth sales are not my primary
source of income, but I have made a non-insignificant amount of money
from Bradley Forthware, and that money spends just as well as the money
from my other job.

Mitch Bradley
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth in print
Date: 9 Apr 92 12:11:25 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 4,  Topic 7
Message 127       Mon Apr 06, 1992
J.NOBLE1 [JVN]               at 21:59 EDT
 
Dear Friends,

"Scientific FORTH: A modern lanuage for scientific computing"  (the book) has
finally gotten off the launching pad: it is now in  press. The official
publication date is April 20 (+/- 10 days).  The book comes with a disk
containing all the programs described  in the text, including real and complex
arithmetic library, a  FORmula TRANslator (latest edition), matrix stuff, FFT,
 polynomial regression, differential equations, roots of  equations, numerical
quadrature, Monte Carlo methods, etc.

"Scientific FORTH" describes several extensions that ease the  transition from
traditional programming languages to FORTH, as  well as simplifying scientific
number crunching. The resulting  dialect should find application in both off-
line and real-time  data analysis. 

All routines are given in high-level FORTH for portability, with  detailed
discussions of peephole machine-language optimization  for execution speed. 

The mathematical basis of the numerical methods is described in  considerable
detail. 

As far as I know, this is the first ever book on FORTH employing  advanced
methods --recursion, finite state machines, decisionless  programming, rule-
based parsing, numerical co-processors, etc.--  illustrated with nontrivial
programming applications. 


The prepublication discount price of $39.95 per copy will apply  until April
30. 

After April 30 the book will retail for $49.95 + $3.00 shipping  and handling.


Send personal checks for the requisite amount to 

    Mechum Banks Publishing
    P.O. Box 335
    Ivy, Virginia 22945


Quantity discounts are also available. Please inquire. 


Sincerely,

Julian V. Noble


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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Feedback to the Forth Interest Group
Date: 8 Apr 92 12:33:19 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 145       Tue Mar 24, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 21:38 EST
 
B.DUNN writes: Could someone post or upload onto GEnie a quick text summary of
the ANSI wordset, stack effects, and descriptions of each word?  There is a
B10SUM.TXT file online...


The problem is that would be very misleading.  A critical part of the standard
lies in definitions, rules of usage, description of notation, etc.  To give
one example, many words in the glossary are described using the phrase
"...parse the input stream..."   Now, we all *think* we know what that means,
but what we think in fact varies a lot.  There are numerous paragraphs *not*
in the glossary that define these terms very specifically.  If you don't have
that information, you won't understand what the standard prescribes at all.
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