2024-06-19 01:10:48 <KipIngram   > Somehow what that twigs in my head is 65HC11.  I want to think I've seen that.
2024-06-19 01:12:17 <KipIngram   > No - that's not right.  There was a 68HC11, it seems.
2024-06-19 16:06:00 <dlowe       > I've dreamed of a C64 except with a forth ROM instead of Microsoft Basic
2024-06-19 16:09:26 <dlowe       > I wonder how my life would have been different if it had shipped with one
2024-06-19 16:10:22 <GeDaMo      > https://www.jupiter-ace.co.uk/hardware_diy_ace.html "How to build your own Jupiter ACE"
2024-06-19 16:10:22 <dlowe       > 53281 15 POKE
2024-06-19 16:10:50 <dlowe       > doesn't have all the lovely custom chips tho
2024-06-19 16:11:21 <GeDaMo      > You could make your own mini Forth machine with something like a RPi
2024-06-19 16:13:20 <dlowe       > there's a glut of mini forth machines, and it's great. Back in the stone ages of microcomputers, though, there was some magic at both actually being on the cutting edge and having that be comprehensible in its entirety to a single person
2024-06-19 16:13:57 <dlowe       > Not to mention, a lot of my early computer education was typing in basic programs from print magazines
2024-06-19 16:14:15 <dlowe       > how much better would it have been to type in forth programs
2024-06-19 16:14:41 <dlowe       > (although increasingly frequently, those basic programs just wrote an assembly program in memory and executed it)
2024-06-19 18:20:05 <traveler    > gforth on a stripped-down Linux distro on an Rpi would make a pretty convenient "forth machine." You get the network stack and filesystem for free.
2024-06-19 18:20:21 <traveler    > And video out.
2024-06-19 18:20:58 <traveler    > mecrisp on an RP2040 is also not a bad way to go for something more barebones.
2024-06-19 18:21:07 <traveler    > or zepto
2024-06-19 18:26:22 <vms14       > traveler today i wonder if i would use some phone with termux instead of a rpi
2024-06-19 18:27:26 <traveler    > vms14: I've done that. I created a garage sale cash register in gforth that ran in termux on an android tablet.
2024-06-19 18:27:30 <vms14       > i have a fake debian on termux and gforth was installed from the debian arm repo
2024-06-19 18:28:12 <vms14       > also installed yesterday pforth by git clone pforth url   and cd pforth/platforms/unix make all
2024-06-19 18:28:44 <vms14       > traveler a web site or with sockets?
2024-06-19 18:29:51 <vms14       > ah just a cli app i suppose
2024-06-19 18:30:44 <vms14       > i saw some web server written in gforth
2024-06-19 18:30:54 <vms14       > i don't know if i can use that cool ffi gforth has in termux
2024-06-19 18:31:32 <vms14       > https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Draw_a_pixel#Forth
2024-06-19 18:33:13 <vms14       > this ffi is cool because it allows forth to be able to do anything a C library can which opens the world for a lot of stuff you might want in forth
2024-06-19 18:34:09 <vms14       > in other implementations is not as easy as just a stack notation
2024-06-19 18:34:33 <traveler    > I was looking at using that to hook into sqlite libraries
2024-06-19 18:35:00 <vms14       > i tried that rosetta code example in gforth in debian and it worked fine
2024-06-19 18:35:02 <traveler    > kinda daunting tbh
2024-06-19 18:35:13 <vms14       > just had to install the sdl libraries
2024-06-19 18:35:54 <vms14       > it might work in this fake debian with termux + andronix, i will try it sooner or later
2024-06-19 18:36:42 <vms14       > i keep having to learn forth
2024-06-19 18:37:49 <traveler    > very interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
2024-06-19 18:38:01 <MrMobius    > I was thinking this week about putting a super tiny machine on the back of my phone
2024-06-19 18:38:08 <MrMobius    > with a qwerty keyboard
2024-06-19 18:38:42 <MrMobius    > a little microcontroller is probably the best way to go if you can get by with a few dozen KB of ram
2024-06-19 19:43:49 <veltas      > traveler: Yeah I agree!!! Re stripped down rpi
2024-06-19 19:46:55 <traveler    > vms14: I missed your question earlier. Yeah, just cli, but scp'd data to a remote machine so sellers could see it.
2024-06-19 19:47:34 <traveler    > Been working to create a richer server side with cgi
2024-06-19 19:48:24 <vms14       > :0
2024-06-19 19:48:54 <vms14       > you'll dive into the cgi protocol and implement post parsing methods and alike?
2024-06-19 20:09:40 <veltas      > vms14: If the FFI doesn't support ARM I don't mind helping you get it working with asm and manual library loading
2024-06-19 20:10:40 <vms14       > veltas i do appreciate the offer for help, i will remember it if i really need to use it
2024-06-19 20:11:11 <vms14       > for now i have to keep learning forth and try to get comfortable with it
2024-06-19 20:11:29 <veltas      > Please share if you find any fun problems along the way
2024-06-19 20:11:45 <veltas      > Because I don't have a lot of good suggestions for people learning, or my own benefit
2024-06-19 20:11:46 <vms14       > i have yet to play with memory and the dictionary and i think is a very important thing to learn so i would like to get a deep understanding
2024-06-19 20:12:16 <veltas      > That 'game' where you swap row/col of a 3x3 matrix until you get a desired pattern is a good demonstration I think
2024-06-19 20:12:51 <vms14       > forth feels quite hard to learn, but i get the feeling i can really fall in love with it
2024-06-19 20:13:05 <veltas      > Expect to fall in and out of love with it constantly
2024-06-19 20:13:11 <veltas      > It's like a bad high
2024-06-19 20:13:13 <vms14       > :D
2024-06-19 20:13:58 <vms14       > i value freedom in a programming language and it's hard to get more freedom than with forth
2024-06-19 20:14:27 <vms14       > i never had interest in forth because of it's niche in embedded systems or being good to play with hardware
2024-06-19 20:14:59 <vms14       > i see "something" that i think is what i was looking for
2024-06-19 20:15:26 <vms14       > in the way you build everything from 0 and you do it with very little pieces
2024-06-19 20:15:58 <vms14       > making a program in little pieces is the way to go for me
2024-06-19 20:16:51 <vms14       > i can also, once i learn how to manage the memory properly, do whatever i want and organize my data however i feel like
2024-06-19 20:16:52 <GeDaMo      > The nice thing about an interactive system is you can test the little pieces separately
2024-06-19 20:18:12 <vms14       > yes, i value a repl a lot. it turns out that the only thing i do with programming is to prototype
2024-06-19 20:18:21 <vms14       > mainly trying things
2024-06-19 20:19:06 <vms14       > everything starts as a prototype until i have a better idea of what i'm doing
2024-06-19 20:19:11 <vms14       > like a playground
2024-06-19 20:25:15 <traveler    > vms14: I'll probably do the server side in awk or even just bash. Not sure yet.
2024-06-19 20:26:17 <traveler    > vms14: I have a lot of fun doing data structures and algorithms stuff. Low Level Learning did a code-along (in C) to implement a linked list. Following along in forth was a lot of fun.
2024-06-19 20:26:37 <vms14       > traveler you mean like a filter to parse the input and to give it to forth? or just using awk/sh instead of forth?
2024-06-19 20:27:10 <vms14       > traveler in C does not feel as fun as in forth to play with memory
2024-06-19 20:27:11 <traveler    > just having apache give the post data over to an awk script.
2024-06-19 20:28:09 <vms14       > in C it felt more like you shouldn't be touching the memory
2024-06-19 20:28:39 <traveler    > sure, but I'm saying I approximated his C code in forth.
2024-06-19 20:28:57 <traveler    > So there was some figuring-out to do.
2024-06-19 20:29:34 <traveler    > Actually, I wouldn't even say that. I replicated the *functions* in forth.
2024-06-19 20:32:12 <traveler    > Later I made a branch-and-bound TSP solver.
2024-06-19 20:34:04 <vms14       > traveler why do you like forth?
2024-06-19 20:35:05 <traveler    > I like the simplicity and brutality of it.
2024-06-19 20:35:23 <traveler    > As a learning tool, it's amazing.
2024-06-19 20:38:08 <traveler    > I also like the freedom and modularity that you mentioned.
2024-06-19 20:38:47 <traveler    > and the playground-like nature of a repl
2024-06-19 20:46:53 <vms14       > why is it amazing as a learning tool?
2024-06-19 20:47:30 <thrig       > some Clojure book tried to convince me that typing text into a repl was better than typing text into an editor
2024-06-19 20:47:31 <traveler    > like you said, nothing is given, so you have to figure everything out for yourself.
2024-06-19 20:48:08 <vms14       > i was talking just now about how i have interest in languages that teach me stuff and this is in part why i have interest in forth and why i don't have interest in langs like python, php, java, ruby, etc
2024-06-19 20:48:09 <traveler    > even the math because you can't just copy/paste from an infix language.
2024-06-19 20:48:42 <vms14       > so it's like a learning playground?
2024-06-19 20:48:48 <vms14       > that's cool
2024-06-19 20:49:09 <traveler    > Right. I find all these YT videos that promise to teach me how xyz works. They just start with "download the xyz library" and I don't learn anything.
2024-06-19 20:49:14 <vms14       > it's usually referred as a tinkerer's language
2024-06-19 20:49:35 <vms14       > and in hackernews as the hacker's language
2024-06-19 20:50:24 <vms14       > so forth is the breadboard of programming languages
2024-06-19 20:50:38 <traveler    > haha, great analogy
2024-06-19 20:51:38 <traveler    > One downside is that to do anything really meaningful in today's landscape, building from zero will take you a long time.
2024-06-19 20:53:12 <vms14       > that's why having ffi to C is cool
2024-06-19 20:53:27 <traveler    > good point.