HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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 12:33:36 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 153       Fri Mar 27, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 21:37 EST
 
RE a summary of ANS Forth:  There are nearly 400 words in the document,
including all the optional wordsets.  Preparing such a summary would be a
massive undertaking.  I have already spent nearly 40 hours just editing
responses to the public review comments (*editing* -- the text was written &
approved last week).  It would be nice if someone had that much free time!

More to the point, see my prior comments about the *necessity* for the
auxiliary definitions of terms and usage rules.  Without these, you haven't a
prayer of writing a compliant implementation.  I promise you, if we could have
described ANS Forth clearly in less than 200 pages we would have done so.

If you are about to invest the time and effort in converting your systems and
programs, you really should first invest the $50 and buy a copy of the
standard.  Think of it as buying an hour of your time -- it will save your
many hours, I promise!
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Graphics, GUIs, and Events
Date: 11 Apr 92 16:01:57 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 33
Message 4         Sat Apr 04, 1992
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 09:56 EST
 
Not being even a moderate user of graphics, I'm really not qualified to
comment on your suggestions...but I promise to read them Real Soon Now and
give you my unqualified opinions.

One thing....surely other groups have wrestled with the problems of
standardizing graphics, and presumably have come up with a workable solution. 
What non-Forth standards are applicable here?

Does the Forth Vendors Group still exist?  Who's running it?

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

-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:22:46 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 30
Message 182       Wed Apr 15, 1992
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 20:36 EDT
 
Re: B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]

 > b) contests in Forth Dimensions -- worked for the Eaker CASE
 > statement (yes, I know it has detractors).  Has it been tried
 > since? Participation limited to FD readership.

Yes, with the Contest of Sorts.  This method does seem to work for small
projects with a well defined scope.  Problems you run into are judging and
prize fulfillment.

 > I'm now leaning toward:
 >
 > e) discussion or working groups on ForthNet

I also think it is a good place to start.  The cost of entry is the most
reasonable of any other alternative and the options of entry points is
expanding every day.

There is really no way to tell how widespread the readership is on ForthNet. 
In some ways that is a problem in itself by not knowing how much coverage we
are getting.  However, if you just assume that it does work, and write up
summaries in Forth Dimensions, you have probably covered as much of the
industry as it is possible to do.

I think we are already doing it this way, or is there anything else I could do
to help it along?

   {B-{)>   DaR
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth in print
Date: 9 Apr 92 12:11:23 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 4,  Topic 7
Message 126       Mon Mar 30, 1992
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 19:44 EST
 
On the subject of Forth in periodicals...the latest issue of The Computer
Journal (#54, Jan/Feb 1992) has _two_ articles featuring Forth.

Yours truly (blush) has part 2 of a 2-part series on writing assemblers in
Forth, describing an assembler for the 6809 (with full source code, of
course).

And Jan Hofland has part 3 -- the Forth source code -- of his 3-part series on
"An Arbitrary Waveform Generator" using the RTX2001A.

Over the last six issues, The Computer Journal has averaged just over two
Forth articles per issue, plus frequent editorial mention of Forth.  Let's
generate more Forth articles, and keep Forth in front of the non-Forth
readers!  (Outreach!  Outreach!)

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

-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: willett.3280.UUL1.3#5129
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-06-92 (22:00)              Number: 30991 of 31006 (Echo)
   To: B.DUNN5 [BRIAN]               Refer#: 30917
 From: RJ BROWN                        Read: NO
 Subj: WHAT SHOULD THE STANDARD      Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 I developed a structures wordset in 1987 that George Hawkins reworked
 into EDO, which I have extended (a little bit) and still use today.  I
 am working on some concepts to have a special symbolic debugging version
 of EDO so that structures will know their type well enough to habndle a
 print message and display all of their feilds labeled by name.  This
 will require no additional work on the part of the application
 programmer other than declaring the structure itself.  Structures are so
 easyt to implement, why should we have a standard?  George's EDO is less
 than a page of widely spaced out and well commented code.  There is no
 need to force, or even encourage, everyone to use the same structure
 declaring wordset when they are so small.  Doing so could seriously
 hamper innovation.

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

-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Martin Ertl)
Subject: Re: Graphics, GUIs, and Events
Organization: Technical University Vienna
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 17:01:53 GMT

In article <3257.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>,
bradford@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Brad Rodriguez) writes:
|> One thing....surely other groups have wrestled with the problems of
|> standardizing graphics, and presumably have come up with a workable solution. 
|> What non-Forth standards are applicable here?

Being as unqualified as you, GKS (Graphics Kernel System) comes to my mind.
I think, that further standards have been developped on top of GKS.

This is a good argument for having an interface to other languages:
Then the work of defining and implementing a Forth Graphics Package can be
saved, because we can call a standardized graphics package of the other
languages.

-- 
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: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:36 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 30
Message 178       Fri Apr 10, 1992
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 22:37 EDT
 
Re: B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]

 > We've talked about this before, Dennis: _how_ can we establish a
 > forum for discussing and publicizing would-be standards?

And as I said then, I don't know!  The ForthNet is read by only a small
percentage of the Forth users and even Forth Dimensions doesn't cover the
industry as well as it should.  As you mentioned, the Forth conference
journals are not read by many and the percentage of those in attendance is the
lowest of all our choices. I don't know how to get a wider forum without first
trying to boost FIG's membership base.  IMHO, they go hand in hand.  We need
to reach out to the industry to convince them we need a forum and we don't
have a forum without them.

You have any more ideas since we talked?   {B-{)>   DaR
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
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 12:33:41 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 157       Sat Mar 28, 1992
B.DUNN5 [Brian]              at 16:34 EST
 
Jack Woehr has uploaded a proto-ANS Forth package for the Amiga. Included in
that package is a file which is a glossary of ANS-Forth words.  Would someone
who knows ANS-Forth be able to take that glossary, update it, add what's
missing, add examples of use for any word which wouldn't be familiar to Forth-
83 users, and add high level definintions for a few words such as POSTPONE?

If this is done, prelude files for F-PC and other systems wouldn't be too far
behind.

-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Non-Forth systems/languages.
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:47:20 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 3,  Topic 16
Message 58        Thu Mar 26, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 21:46 EST
 
The problem with translating other languages to Forth is that, although there
is frequently a direct mapping of commands and concepts between, say,
languages derived from FORTRAN and ALGOL, no such logical mapping exists
between such languages and Forth, because they are conceptually quite
different and don't descend from a common source.

This is also something that a programmer needs to remember when learning
Forth.  Simply writing "postfix C" for example, will produce extremely bad
Forth code.
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth in print
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: willett.3276.UUL1.3#5129
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 4,  Topic 7
Message 130       Thu Apr 09, 1992
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 22:44 EDT
 
> Is this computer journal you speak of the IEEE Computer Journal?

No...but I'm glad you asked. :-)

The Computer Journal -- that's the entire name -- is a small scale journal,
reminescent of the early Dr. Dobbs or Micro Cornucopia: no glossy paper, no
four-color printing, LOTS of substance!  The editorial focus of the journal is
small-scale computing, both professional and hobbyist.  There's lots of
coverage of 8-bit and embedded systems --it's probably one of the few journals
still serving CP/M users -- and lots of Forth coverage, probably more than in
any other non-Forth journal.

TCJ has been published six times a year for the last 8 or 9 years.
Subscriptions are currently $18/year (an astonishing bargain).  You can get a
sample issue by calling 800-424-8825 toll-free (even from Canada!), or 908-755-
6186 (24 hours).  Or write The Computer Journal, Socrates Press, P.O. Box 12,
South Plainfield, NJ 07080- 0012, USA.  Or send email to TCJ$ on GEnie, or
cmcewen@gnat.rent.com on the Internet.

Brad Rodriguez
 B.RODRIGUEZ2 on GEnie   |   bradford@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
 Disclaimer: I'm a contributing editor of The Computer Journal.

-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Date: 11 Apr 92 16:01:39 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 30
Message 167       Tue Mar 24, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 22:00 EST
 
The standard does contain a brief introduction for people unfamiliar with
Forth, which was substantially improved last week, as well as Annex D which
provides more background.  But a proper tutorial looks more like Starting
Forth & other such books.  It's a big job teaching a new language, and that's
very definitely *not* the purpose of a standard!
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
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 12:33:25 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 148       Wed Mar 25, 1992
LRWEBBER [larry]             at 18:27 EST
 
I just wanted to add my two cents on using GENIE as FIG communication medium.
With all the problems folks have with GENIE, I don't know any better medium to
use. I would REALLY like to get away from $6.00/hr but am (obviously) willing
to live with it. Dennis, my biggest complaint is when GENIE goes away for 45
seconds to > 1 minute when busy. If the system can't handle the load, it
shouldn't allow more users to log on. .s
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth Taught at Schools/Universities
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:47:06 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 2,  Topic 2
Message 75        Tue Mar 24, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 21:44 EST
 
RE "widespread ... implementations of 83-Forth":  Watch out.  Neither F83 nor
F-PC are FORTH-83 compliant.  In fact, X3J14 did a very comprehensive study
and found *no* widely used system that was strictly compliant.  Not to say
they aren't both perfectly usable systems -- maybe even more usable because of
the way they violated FORTH-83.  This is part of the problem we're trying to
correct with ANS Forth.
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Date: 17 Apr 92 12:05:55 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 30
Message 183       Thu Apr 16, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 21:36 EDT
 
>...and a vendor bias is enevitable.

We've heard a lot about "vendor bias" over the years, and I'd be interested to
hear just how you define that and what its effect is as you see it.
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: pazsan@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Bernd Paysan)
Subject: Re: a beginner question
Originator: pazsan@hphalle9c.informatik.tu-muenchen.de
Organization: Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 14:09:00 GMT
Distribution: comp


There is a pretty nice solution that uses a wrap around number space:

: WITHIN ( n [low high[ -- flag )
  OVER - -ROT - U> ;

Look at it carefully:

Word:		Stack:			Comment
WITHIN		n [low high[
OVER		n [low high[ low[
-		n [low range		\ range:= high[ - [low
-ROT		range n [low		\ get rid of range
-		range offset		\ offset:= n - [low
U>		flag			\ true if range greater offset

If you SWAP the limits, you invert the result. So

5 3 WITHIN gives all numbers that are not within 3 and 5.

Next time try to trace the words; most Forth's have tracers. Try
DEBUG word or TRACE word or something like this. It's very helpful.

Bernd
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Non-Forth systems/languages.
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:47:27 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-04-92 (13:38)              Number: 30941 of 30954 (Echo)
   To: GARY SMITH                    Refer#: 30909
 From: RAY DUNCAN                      Read: NO
 Subj: NON-FORTH SYSTEMS/LANGUAG     Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

   >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.
 <<<>>>

-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth Taught at Schools/Universities
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:46:36 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 2,  Topic 2
Message 77        Mon Apr 13, 1992
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 22:05 EDT
 
Re: ir230@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (john wavrik)

 > It would be interesting to know what these violations are.

John, I don't know them all either, but I did come across one blatent
violation in regard to number conversion.  The 83 standard says that NUMBER
will convert "to and including the digit with the decimal value 71 which is
represented by the character "~"."  Well this encompases the lower case
letters in the number base and the letter "A" does not represent the same
thing as "a" when used in a number.  This is quite obviously violated in _any_
system that is case insensitive which is the default for F83.  That statement
even made it into dpANS-2 and took some brilliant work by Mitch to "fix" for
the next version.  This is the only one I've stumbled upon lately, but if I
were to look, I'm sure I'd find more.  You might say this is minor, and solved
when CAPS was turned ON.  However, the arguement is _strict_ compliance in the
"out of the box" configuration.

   {B-{)>   DaR
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Non-Forth systems/languages.
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:09 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-06-92 (22:29)              Number: 30996 of 31006 (Echo)
   To: GARY SMITH                    Refer#: 30903
 From: RJ BROWN                        Read: NO
 Subj: NON-FORTH SYSTEMS/LANGUAG     Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 Have you looked at TILE Forth (Threaded Interpretive Language
 Environment) from Mikael R. K. Patel at Linkoping University, Linkoping
 Sweeden?  It is written in Unix portable C and is nicely integrated with
 Gnu emacs, making it a very nice environment to work in.  There are many
 good examples of Lisp-like stuff written in Forth included.  It is
 distributed under the Gnu Public License, so it is free.  It si not real
 real fast, compared to assembler Forths, but it is as good speedwise as
 anything else I have seen in C, and the system comes with a complete set
 of online man-pages and everything.

 NET/Mail : LMI Forth Board, Los Angeles, CA (310) 306-3530
 <<<>>>
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us