Stepping FORTH from the past

[Louis Ohland]

I mostly dabble with IBM microchannel systems (over 20 years..) but
someone recently let on he was controlling his model train with Opto22
B1 and B2 brain boards, hung off an AC32 dual RS-422/485 async adapter....

One thing lead to another, and while surfing for Opto22 documentation, I
stumbled onto the LC2 and LC4 controllers. Choice of BASIC, FORTH, and
Paragon (whatever THAT was).

Further digging showed the LC2 / LC4 used a slight variant of FORTH-83,
minus any screen support (terminal is what you got) and some LCx
specific stuff, like watchdog and Optomux support...
http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohlandl/Opto22/0173.3_LC2-LC4_FORTH_Programming_Guide.pdf
http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohlandl/Opto22/0157_LC4_Installation_Manual.pdf

I am currently recognizing the LC2 / LC4 FORTH document, and by sheer
repetition some of the syntax is becoming familiar.

Ordered Starting FORTH and Thinking FORTH, and as things progress,
Mastering FORTH....

So... It seems as FORTH will run on MS-DOS (plus others), but it gets
fuzzy, bringing up LCterm, banging into the LC4, which is running
FORTH-83... I see CAMEL FORTH, a Z180 variant.

One challenge is the PROM, and what flavor it is. I've seen Cyrano,
Paragon, and possibly Opto22 flavors... I have a burner and know how to
use it...

[menti...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, January 13, 2018 at 3:04:58 PM UTC-8, Louis Ohland wrote:
> [...]

> Ordered Starting FORTH and Thinking FORTH, and as things progress,
> Mastering FORTH....

"Starting FORTH" is what got me in to coding AI in Forth.

Arthur
--
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=307824.307853 = Mind.Forth
http://aihub.net/artificial-intelligence-lab-projects
http://ai.neocities.org/MsIeAi.html
http://cyborg.blogspot.com

[Louis Ohland]

The PS/2 systems pretty much hit a brick wall in '95, as far as IBM
development / support. The O/S support hit the pinnacle in W98SE, and
then the lights went out.

I had to scurry about looking for updates, and more or less kept up with
a functioning system until about 2008, when browsers went all frames,
CSS and stuff. Just could not keep up with the ever larger program
sizes, and lack of O/S support. When I retired, I didn't have to have
the government approved O/S and browser (and the updates, good lord).

This FORTH thing, being relatively tiny, is interesting. Assembler just
didn't make much sense. Got some systems that should do fine with DOS.
Or FORTH, if I ever get that far.