Posts by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
(DIR) Post #AYuMhDHpHEXdDL10XQ by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-08-20T02:26:50Z
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@simon I'm fascinated by what you've been able to get out of it, but (even ignoring the copyright problems/threats) there's nothing I've seen it do so far that I personally want done :-) (Now, when it gets to the point of doing code review, or anything even vaguely security related, it'll be another story...)
(DIR) Post #AZRNOZDDVVbC9HljUG by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-09-04T19:27:12Z
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https://mastodon.mit.edu/@ratfactor@mastodon.art/110724395484652351 -> https://ratfactor.com/forth/the_programming_language_that_writes_itself.html is an amazing 30k word traipse through the history of computing itself, using Forth as a guide-rail, going from pre-retro-computing (IBM 704) up through modern "Forth In Space" applications - https://www.forth.com/space-shuttle-robot-arm/ to tie in my recent https://mastodon.mit.edu/@eichin/111005779684422063 photo postings.
(DIR) Post #AZRNOaxh0CMxZiWMZE by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-09-04T19:33:02Z
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The article is an excellent collection of reference material, but given the recent spike in popularity of the Z80 as a modern-hardware retro-platform (via https://rc2014.co.uk/ and the like) I'd recommend one additional book: "Threaded Interpretive Languages: Their Design and Implementation" by R. G. Loeliger. It walks you through the essentials and bootstrapping your own (Z80) forth in 45 bytes or so of code. When I ran across it, I'd written an unplayably-slow version of Breakout…
(DIR) Post #AZRNOcL7sYhxqgUajQ by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-09-04T19:36:55Z
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… in TRS-80 BASIC. Now, I was one of those weirdos that started with 8080 machine code in hex, from books, and learned basic later - primarily as a way to load machine code in, since TRS-80s didn't have front panels like real machines - but it seemed tedious to try and write an entire game in machine code. Enter Forth - wrote an inner interpreter, then some words for doing pixel graphics and scanning the keyboard - the first version that actually ran was *too fast* for the frame rate :-)
(DIR) Post #AZRNOdh8qBue3Fngga by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-09-04T19:40:59Z
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Turns out this was much less weird than I realized at the time - in my commercial work (not that much later) I came upon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatik which was written in Forth for CP/M - ended up spending more time "cracking" the software to get at the outer-interpreter prompt and use it as a Forth, than using it for writing. Their motivation seemed to be more about compressing a complex system to fit in 64k of RAM, than speed, but it still had verbose function(word) names, no token obfuscation...
(DIR) Post #AZRNOg2U7oApK1nlEO by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-09-04T19:48:45Z
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At some point I should dip my toes in and try implementing a forth in WASM (yes, there are several, that's not the point - the learning comes from *implementing* it, not using someone else's - it's sort of a "Jedi build their own lightsabers" thing, with the usual caveat that jedi are not particularly known for having any skills at *working with others*, it's absolutely a personal "feeling of power" path .) But it is more tempting to solder up a Z80 board and start there instead :-)
(DIR) Post #AbiCr5jcusNZOpTieO by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2023-11-11T23:20:02Z
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@simon Huh, that's it? As in, that's all the instruction it takes?
(DIR) Post #AhOHksr9IbZZPViWv2 by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-04-29T19:44:15Z
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@foone all the stories I keep hearing about PG&E make it sound like no, they don't...
(DIR) Post #AhrFQ4CgV4IlOWwZQu by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-05-13T18:50:19Z
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@foone "CRTs --Georg-- Foone is an outlier and should not have been counted"
(DIR) Post #AiX5vNA8tT1tpxFuro by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-06-02T23:46:03Z
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@foone that looks a lot like the 25-year-old kenmore I have (torn down twice - the first one was an actually burned-through heating element (in that square-tube on the right), the second was three of the wheels no longer turned - hair burned in to a carbon layer on the bearing shafts.) For both of them, getting it to the stage you're at was the hard part; the parts are turned out to be pretty easy to get (the most recent repair was this year.)
(DIR) Post #Aju9DUySt6NZDdvgw4 by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-07-14T00:24:12Z
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@foone BITD we had "cdecl" for translating things like that from C to words ( https://cdecl.org/ based on the 1996 port *to* linux of the commandline tool) and I wonder if there's a similar "explainer" for rust syntax.
(DIR) Post #AkHHMHUfe5CMHjlqAC by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-07-25T04:22:59Z
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@foone sol-20 was walnut on the sides but sheet metal for the rest... most of the S-100 bus systems I used in the mid 80s were metal boxes, but that might have just been "because the IMSAI was".
(DIR) Post #AkrReVnnBC4L6fbUZc by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-08-05T03:59:23Z
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36 new pix http://flic.kr/p/2q8cGuy [Dawes Arboretum,Newark,Ohio,David Rogers' Big Bugs,Massachusetts,Sculpture,Montague Book Mill,Montague,flowers,japanese garden,arbor,trees,sign,northern mockingbird,eastern wood-pewee,mockingbird,waterfall,bluebird,gazebo,ants,bark...]
(DIR) Post #AkrReX9o8pH1JEuaWm by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-08-05T04:04:45Z
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Another day of my vacation trip, highlights included Big Bugs https://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/53901847747/ (https://www.davidrogersbigbugs.com/ at Dawes Arboretum this year.)
(DIR) Post #AkrReYXazrtbbJ36FE by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-08-05T04:06:26Z
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Also a first sighting (for me) of what Merlin thinks is an Eastern Wood-Peewee https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eastern_Wood-Pewee/overview# https://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/53902751006/
(DIR) Post #AkrReZzzZmCk7fLI92 by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2024-08-05T04:12:19Z
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err, web-mastodon is only showing the cornell pic - https://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/53902751006/ is mine 🙂
(DIR) Post #AsjdvlXPIyLD0aspBw by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2025-04-04T03:45:09Z
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@foone with in-chat rock-paper-scissors to resolve conflicts
(DIR) Post #AvmFQwfpg5CBQDHq5o by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2025-07-04T03:31:03Z
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@foone "the obvious happened" what, you got doom up on it? (or turned it into a keyboard)
(DIR) Post #Ay5WbQf8z7J65ZkARk by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2025-09-11T06:27:08Z
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@foone "I m's royr ," → " I'm sorry" just by swapping letters pairwise (or is that already obvious?)
(DIR) Post #AyYtjUuXxIr7l15DZA by eichin@mastodon.mit.edu
2025-09-25T10:33:00Z
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@foone given the earlier work, I assumed this was going to be another juggling keyboard, just with full unicode support :)