2025-01-10 16:26:02 <pgimeno     > the Forth interpreter I've been working on is now fully tested and published: https://codeberg.org/pgimeno/JAForth
2025-01-10 16:38:48 <xentrac     > pgimeno: congratulations!
2025-01-10 16:39:03 <xentrac     > this yogurt came out very tasty, but too runny
2025-01-10 16:52:41 <pgimeno     > heh
2025-01-10 16:54:08 <xentrac     > the first step in writing a compiler is usually to get a compiler
2025-01-10 16:54:13 <xentrac     > to compile it with
2025-01-10 16:54:33 <xentrac     > somewhat similarly, the first step in making yogurt is to get some yogurt
2025-01-10 16:55:10 <xentrac     > I think the supermarket yogurt I was using for my seed culture was rather deficient in Lactobacillus
2025-01-10 16:55:20 <pgimeno     > oh indeed
2025-01-10 16:55:32 <xentrac     > there must be an analogy to Forth metacompilation here somewhere
2025-01-10 16:55:38 <pgimeno     > hehe
2025-01-10 16:56:12 <pgimeno     > hm, Forth might be a good language to bootstrap a self-compiler
2025-01-10 16:57:31 <xentrac     > that's been Virgil's hypothesis
2025-01-10 16:57:39 <xentrac     > he seems to have done okay with it
2025-01-10 16:57:56 <pgimeno     > I mean, e.g. FreePascal is a self-compiler: you need a previous version, and I believe that the first versions were written with Turbo Pascal until it was able of compiling itself. Turbo Pascal in time was based on previous versions, the first one of which was in assembler.
2025-01-10 16:58:48 <pgimeno     > But a Forth interpreter/compiler is simple enough as to be implementable in assembler with ease, and then the bootstrap compiler could be written in Forth
2025-01-10 16:58:59 <yakubin     > The first Pascal compiler was compiled by Wirth in his head.
2025-01-10 16:59:06 <yakubin     > It was written in Pascal.
2025-01-10 16:59:22 <yakubin     > And punched on punched card manually after being compiled by Wirth by hand.
2025-01-10 16:59:27 <yakubin     > cards*
2025-01-10 16:59:32 <vms14       > good old times
2025-01-10 16:59:34 <xentrac     > really?  I'm surprised he didn't write it in Algol-W or something
2025-01-10 16:59:47 <pgimeno     > heh well, I'm talking about the bootstrapping process of Free Pascal in particular, not going that far away :)
2025-01-10 17:00:05 <xentrac     > Turbo Pascal was also written in (8080) assembly
2025-01-10 17:00:39 <xentrac     > not in Pascal
2025-01-10 17:00:47 <xentrac     > or PL/M
2025-01-10 17:01:29 <xentrac     > (I believe from looking at some of the disassembly, anyway.  this is somewhat less than optimally reliable since I'm very weak on 8080 assembly)
2025-01-10 17:01:42 <pgimeno     > yes, definitely in assembler
2025-01-10 17:02:16 <pgimeno     > I don't know if the DOS or the CP/M version was first, but it's likely it was the CP/M one
2025-01-10 17:02:28 <pgimeno     > anyway, way off topic, sorry
2025-01-10 17:02:39 <xentrac     > I'm pretty sure it was the CP/M one
2025-01-10 17:02:55 <xentrac     > because it shipped in November 01983
2025-01-10 17:03:32 <xentrac     > the IBM PC shipped in August 01981 so developing the DOS version first wouldn't have been impossible
2025-01-10 17:03:53 <pgimeno     > yeah but I agree it's unlikely to have been the case
2025-01-10 17:04:11 <xentrac     > just that there were still a lot more CP/M machines around
2025-01-10 17:05:34 <xentrac     > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland#The_1980s:_Foundations says that Borland Ltd. was founded in 01981 to sell CP/M software
2025-01-10 17:05:59 <pgimeno     > "The compiler was first released as Compas Pascal for CP/M, and then released on 20 November 1983[2] as Turbo Pascal for CP/M [...], CP/M-86, and DOS machines." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Pascal
2025-01-10 17:07:43 <xentrac     > yeah, I was just about to paste that too
2025-01-10 17:08:40 <xentrac     > that page also says the compiler was written in assembly