[ANNOUNCE] Orthagonal v.no-number
Jeff Obik Epler
comp.lang.misc -- followups to comp.lang.misc, for want of a better
place. comp.lang.purgatory, maybe?)
Announcing: Orthagonal v.no-number
A two-dimensional stack-based language, created during an afternoon when
I ran a fever of 101 degrees. (Or somewhat less, in celcius)
You can get orthagonal.shar from alt.sources, or you can request it in mail
from the author (me) by mailing to jep...@herbie.unl.edu . To get a speedy
response, mention 'orthagonal' and 'request' in the subject: line.
This is an abbreviated version of the README contained in orthagonal.shar:
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Recently, in alt.folklore.computers, there have been discussions about a
language that would be 2 dimensional in nature. This is my attempt at
writing such a language.
Please forgive the fact that this is hardly 'documentation'.
A program in Orthagonal has two parts:
1) The grid.
2) The stack.
When the Orthagonal interpreter is invoked, the grid is read from standard
input, the PC is loaded with (0,0),(1,0) and the stack is initialized to be
empty. The bottom row of the grid, (0,255)(1,0) is loaded with up to 256
characters from argv[1].
(The format of the PC is (grid coordinate),(delta coordinate))
Then, the interpreter performs the following steps:
1) Interpret the contents of the current grid coordinate
a) If the element is an operator, perform the action associated with
the operator
b) If the element is a quantity, push the quantity onto the stack (The stack
can hold at most 256 elements)
2) Add the delta coordinate to the grid coordinate, wrap around if
necessary. (The grid size is 256x256 -- I wonder if this will be adequate?)
3) go to 1
Program execution terminates when there is a stack underflow, or when the
RET operator returns the top element of the stack as a result code to the
operating system
[...]
Enjoy. (Or, as we say, spok dein fifi)
Feel free to contact me at jep...@herbie.unl.edu if you have any comments about
this language.
I hope to hear soon that an enlightenend computer science teacher will
use this language in one of his 100-level comp sci courses, instead of pascal.
After all, the looping constructs are very elegant. (Yes, I've been waiting
all day to say that)
Jeff Epler
the reluctant creator of orthagonal
--
____ "And if I smile please tell me some bad news
\BI/ before I laugh and act like a fool"
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