HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth in print
Date: 9 Apr 92 12:11:20 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 4,  Topic 7
Message 125       Sun Mar 29, 1992
H.SIMMONS                    at 01:03 EST
 
In the current issue of Circuit Celler Ink, also known as the Computer 
Applications Journal (#26, April/May 1992), an article by Frank Cox does  an
excellent job of putting Forth in front of potential new users.

His feature article, The Frugal Networker, describes his approach to  solving
a problem using a cross-point switch.  In addition to providing a  schematic,
he supplies some code and tutorial material showing how easy it  is to control
this hardware.  He is using the NewMicros 100 Squared board  for the computer
portion of his project.

Three cheers for Frank!  The only thing missing was a reference to the  Forth
Interest Group.  How can new users get help from us (FIG) if they  don't know
that we exist? 

Let's have many more such articles in all kinds of publications.



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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 13:12:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: willett.3263.UUL1.3#5129
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 172       Thu Apr 09, 1992
M.HORE [Mike]                at 17:48 EDT
 
Eric Johansson writes:

> heck, even a series of single user bbss scattered across the > country
connected via whatever mail/news package would work nicely.  > I suggest that
if we do create such a network, that we take advantage of > the usenet
distribution system.  this way, we would be able to provide > access to the
international users via their usenet connections.

Not quite.  Here in Australia it's not quite possible yet for just anybody to
get a usenet connection.  It's coming, but we're not there yet.  Give it
another 12 months or 2 years.  The network I'm on has promised access to 
comp.lang.forth "Real Soon Now" for several months.  But GEnie IS here right
now!

-- Mike Hore

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From: Interface!b0b@overmind.mind.org
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: (none)
Date: 4 Apr 92 18:16:00 GMT
Organization: North California
X-mailer: Stadel 3.4a-227
X-Spam-content: irrelevant


   Mitch Bradley writes: 
   
  > A number of people felt that the bolck/file mechanism used to establish 
  > the presence of the BLOCK space should be left to the implementation.  
   
   I feel sort of stupid asking, but I have a program that I hope to make 
portable by ANSIfying it.  The program uses BLOCK to access to a number of 
different files.  Is it true that, according to the NEW dpANS, there is no 
standard way to access more than one file via BLOCK in a standard program? 
   
   Bob Lee
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Date: 11 Apr 92 16:01:46 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 30
Message 171       Tue Mar 31, 1992
B.DUNN5 [Brian]              at 03:16 EST
 
Several people have said that if suchandsuch were in the core they would
complain but if it were just in an optional wordset that would be ok. How
about taking CASE out of the core ext and making a CASE wordset, and also a
DEFER wordset?

CSI Forths have used structures for a while, and similar structures have
appeared in Forth Dimensions over the years.  Is this enough usage to have a
structures wordset?
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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Graphics, GUIs, and Events
Date: 11 Apr 92 16:02:01 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 33
Message 6         Sun Apr 05, 1992
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 23:58 EDT
 
Still reviewing your previous list....but one more comment: IMHO it is
necessary to have a portable way to draw real, circular, circles. So your
package should provide some portable means of dealing with aspect ratio.

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

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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Date: 11 Apr 92 16:01:50 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 30
Message 173       Mon Apr 06, 1992
B.DUNN5 [Brian]              at 23:05 EDT
 
If the Forth Interest Group were to make a FIG standard wordset for
structures, defer, and whatnot, how would this be done?
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From: bo511@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (James P. Norris)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Object-oriented Forth, Neon/Yerk, etc.
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:32:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: usenet.1992Apr9.133213.25910
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)


I saw a show on PBS the other night about the history of the 
computer and up to that time I thought it was better to keep 
reaching for the best idea and the best way of doing something.
Then I learned that the person who first came up with the idea
for a computer never finished it. He ran out of funds and died 
before it was completed. Only now over a century after it was
concieved can we even begin to appreciate his idea. 
  This man (Charles something or other) was working on a 
difference adding machine and stopped working on it to build
a mechanical computer. An infinitely better device, granted.
However, his funders got impatient and neither useful device 
was built.
  Eniac however was built and the man most responsible for it's
completion had an interesting comment. He said that by the time
they had finished working on Eniac they had better ideas on how
to do everything but at some point they had to draw the line 
and finish working on what they were doing so that they would
have something that would work. Otherwise Eniac would have never
been built. 
  My point is this. I am a Forth programmer programming in
Multi-Forth. i have just finished a really nice string handling
package for it. I wish I could have spent more time working
on finished applications. Why can't the existing Forth's be
expanded and the range of current Forth applications be expanded
to include just about everything a modern programmer would need
instead of trying to come up with a whole new standard? And once
that is done work on the new ideas? Or are the old Forth standards
so horrible no-one could possibly use them productively?
  Up until this program I was always chasing the new idea and
not finishing anything. From now on though I think I will focus
my efforts a little bit more on short term goals so that 
others will be able to recognize my talents before I am dead.

--
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth project in New Orleans
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:09:44 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 11,  Topic 6
Message 2         Tue Apr 14, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 22:13 EDT
 
RE the long-term project in New Orleans:  FORTH, Inc. can probably help. Call
us at 1-800-55FORTH.

Thanks!
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: ANSI Forth Documentation
Keywords: ANSI
Organization: CSI Dept., University of Ottawa
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 92 04:30:11 GMT


Various messages have expressed the "fact" that the only document that
can POSSIBLY describe ANSI Forth is in fact the definitional document.
Talk about "brief work lists" has been brushed off as impractical and
misleading.

By this, can I imply that it is IMPOSSIBLE to describe ANSI Forth
outside of the ANSI document?

- There ain't gonna be any "Starting FORTH: ANSI Version", because
it's not the ANSI document.

- Vesta Technology won't be able to sell a manual for their ANSI
products, because that manual won't be the ANSI document.

- ALL programmers working in ANSI Forth will use the infamous document
as their only documentation, because it's the only document that can
POSSIBLY describe the new language.

'Cmon!  There has GOT to be a time when briefer/more layman-
approachable documentation will become available.  jaxForth must have
a word-list in it somewhere.  Similarly, the ZenForth documentation
probably has SOME useful information in it.

The fact that the final standard hasn't been completely finalized
shouldn't prevent us from making SOME use of the work.  Certainly a
quick-reference card should include the caveat "Subject to change
based on ANSI committee work."  But unless the committee members have
been really incompetent, there shouldn't be TOO many further changes.

The concerns resulting in changes tend to be about things that are in
fact at the "edges" of the languages, and not about CORE words.  I'm
willing to wait a bit for a word list, but other people who are more
gung-ho would like SOME information, and aren't being unreasonable
about it.

ANSI Forth has TWO sides;

One being the standardization of the contentious issues.  Some parts
of this are still in flux.

The other is to standardize the more "ordinary" stuff.  I don't know
the standard, but I expect that there's a LOT of features (that may
have been done in many ways in the past, and are done ONE way in ANSI)
that aren't likely to change any more.

'Twould be nice to hear the two lists:
1) Words that are now pretty firm
2) Words that are still contentious
-- 
Christopher Browne
cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca
University of Ottawa
Master of System Science Program
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Feedback to the Forth Interest Group
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:22:37 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 188       Thu Apr 16, 1992
B.SUTTON1 [Brian]            at 00:01 EDT
 
To: STEFAN BAKER   #1310 RelayNet (tm)

 Subj: FEEDBACK TO THE FORTH INT
 Conf: FORTH (58)

  > This might sound a little dumb (I am not so far into Forth that
  > I   know better (-|  ) but I would be delighted if I could
  > simply write   something like:

  >     RECORD  COMPANY
  >      12 FIELD  COMP-ID
  >      20 FIELD  COMP-NAME
  >      20 FIELD  COMP-CITY
  >      .....
  >     END-RECORD

  >     FILE-NAME  COMPANY   C:\DBASE\COMPANY.DTA
  >     OPEN-NEW   COMPANY


How about this:

file: company.dta

      0 12 100 allow company.dta record: comp-id
        20 100 allow company.dta record: comp-name
        20           company.dta record: comp-city


    or

file: company.dta

      0 52 company.dta record: company

0  derive >comp-id
 12 derive >comp-name
 20 derive >comp-city


either of which will work with the wordset in RNDMRECS.ZIP for F-PC
 that I've uploaded to the GENIE library.

The file will open automatically when you call any of the records.


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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Non-Forth systems/languages.
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:47:25 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 03-31-92 (13:57)              Number: 30923 of 30923 (Echo)
   To: ALL                           Refer#: NONE
 From: JACK WOEHR                      Read: (N/A)
 Subj: MIXED LANG. PROGRAMMING       Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 In line with the Bradley/Milan Merhar thread:

         Recently I have seen a lot of work in mixed Forth/C/Other
 projects on complex platforms and multi-platform projects. As a
 result, I am going to present a paper at this year's Rochester
 Forth Conference (6/17-6/19/92, Forth Institute, Rochester NY)
 on "Forth as a Component of Advanced Environments".

         Anecdotal information, especially if well documented,
 greatly welcomed and appreciated! Send me more grist for the
 mill!
         Thank you.

         Jack Woehr
         jax@well.sf.ca.us
         JAX on GEnie
         jwoehr@isis.cs.du.edu

 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: 8 Apr 92 12:33:17 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 144       Tue Mar 24, 1992
ELLIOTT.C                    at 13:28 EST
 
Actually, some of the message archiving happens more quickly and some of it
more slowly, depending on volume and current utility; and occasionally there's
house-cleaning.  Most of what disappears from the BBS remains in the library
for a fair while; files may get taken offline for insufficint interest or
becoming obsolete.
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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth in print
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:13:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: willett.3274.UUL1.3#5129
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-06-92 (23:18)              Number: 30984 of 30984 (Echo)
   To: S.SQUIRES                     Refer#: 30963
 From: JACK WOEHR                      Read: NO
 Subj: MVP FORTH & TOPO ROBOTS       Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 -> There is a person who has some Topo Androbots which are controlled by
 -> MVP Forth on an Apple II using the serial port.  She now wants to run
 -> it on an IBM which has MVP Forth as well.  Is there any serial port
 -> support words in MVP? How do these conmpare to the Apple II version?

         Jiminy, Scott, where you been?! Long time no scan!

         Anyway, the subject of PC serial support in mixed Forth and ASM
 has been worked to death ... in particular, take a look at the end of
 _Footsteps in an Empty Valley_, which should be portable to just about
 any IBM Forth.

                 =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: ANS TC Magnet for Documentation
Date: 17 Apr 92 12:05:53 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 10,  Topic 18
Message 24        Thu Apr 16, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 21:33 EDT
 
Bernd writes, "the changes to dpANS from BASIS17 were so minor..."

They took John Rible, our document editor, about 30 hours to enter, and he's
pretty efficient.  The reason the response packages are so late going out is
that he spent >100 hrs doing the edits after the last meeting.  Now, a lot of
this isn't technical changes, but extensive clarifications to deal with issues
people brought out that needed clarifying.  But a few minor technical changes
can have extensive ramifications!
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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: for us beginners?  Help
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:47:10 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 03-30-92 (22:57)              Number: 30906 of 30906 (Echo)
   To: RICHARD COOKE                 Refer#: 5288
 From: JACK WOEHR                      Read: NO
 Subj: PROGRAMMING QUESTION          Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 -> I'm new to FORTH and need some help with a small programming
 -> question. Can anybody show me an easy way to determine which bit in
 -> an 8 bit number is set if one and only one bit is set out of the 8 ?
 -> I'd like to use the bit position as an index into a small array. Any
 -> and all help is greatly appreciated.

         Here's  quick answer, not necessarily the most efficient,
 returns 0 to 7 or -1 if no bit set. Presumes an 8-bit byte. Should
 run on just about any Forth, including ANS Forth.

         : WHICH-BIT ( byte -- bit|-1)
            -1 SWAP
            8 0 DO
                 DUP 2/ SWAP ( copy for testing, shift one for next try)
                 1 AND       ( test current mask, a 1 now in 0th place?)
                 IF          ( yes we found a 1 in bit 0 this time)
                   SWAP DROP I SWAP LEAVE ( discard dummy, leave bit#)
                 THEN
            LOOP DROP ; ( discard byte, return bit# or original -1)

                                 =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: ANS FORTH TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
Date: 11 Apr 92 16:01:32 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-02-92 (23:22)              Number: 30931 of 30931 (Echo)
   To: B.DUNN5 [BRIAN]               Refer#: 30926
 From: STEVE WHEELER                   Read: NO
 Subj: ANS FORTH TECHNICAL COMMI     Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 -> I never dreamed that a glossary would be such a cause of war.

 I don't consider it a "cause of war". The problem is that for a fair
 number of things, there won't be any "quick examples". As you said,
 someone who knows what they're doing will have to do the implementation,
 but (and this is a big but) there are quite a few things which:

         a) Are probably not suitable for loading on top of an existing
            implementation (CATCH and THROW are *extremely* low-level in
            my implementation).

         b) Are not going to be good examples of portable ANS coding
            (implementing locals comes to mind here ... among other
            things, the standard requires that any defined local names
            be searched *prior* to any wordlist in the search order.)

         c) Are not trivial enough to produce in a "quick example".

 I don't want to give the wrong impression. ANS Forth is not, for the
 most part, much different from extant Forths. I have an application
 which is currently 1800+ lines of source (about 17k compiled in a 32-bit
 subroutine-threaded system). Most of it would be instantly recognizable.

 Some of the features added to ANS Forth for portability and
 application reliability are not simple add-ons to existing
 implementations. Someone will almost certainly be able to make F-PC
 (say) ANS compliant. I doubt, however, that it will be done simply by
 providing source files to load on top of version 3.55 (or whatever's the
 most recent).

 - wheels

 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: Advanced Beginners
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:22:39 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.


 Date: 04-10-92 (05:22)              Number: 31060 of 31065 (Echo)
   To: ALL                           Refer#: NONE
 From: JAMES GRAHAM                    Read: (N/A)
 Subj: POLYFORTH/LMI ?               Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 I have 2 questions.  First, can anyone tell me what the following code
 is trying to do?   I am told that 'S is the address of the top of stack,
 but I cannot figure out what it is trying to do.

 VARIABLE 'SP-IF
 : *if*   -1 'S 4- 'SP-IF ! ;

 The above is polyForth 79 code.

 Also, I am told that -' is the underlying word for ' and that it does
 not abort.  Does anyone know the LMI PC/Forth 3.2 equivalent of -' ?

 Thanks,
 James Steven Graham

 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 13:12:46 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.

Category 1,  Topic 2
Message 170       Wed Apr 08, 1992
G.LEFAVE [Gene]              at 10:59 EDT
 
I was at COMDEX in Chicago yesterday.  It was somewhat dissapointing to me
that there was no mention of Forth at the show.

I had hoped that there would be at least one Forth demo at the IBM or
Microsoft developers booths.

Gene

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