Hi John, interesting stuff. We are getting a bit off-topic, hopefully others don't mind. I joined the party in the 90s, I remember HP pa-risc, Sun Sparc, SGI Indigo workstations. Intel and PCs were just establishing their foothold. I haven't really worked with the Alphas. It sounds like you have a lot of material for some interesting blog posts if you were so inclined.
Best regards, Martin On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 12:54 PM John Sarabacha <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Again Martin, > These emails are for when you have trouble sleeping (will put you asleep). > Bill Gates hired Dave Cutler away from DEC (who worked on vms 32 bit > operating systems) to bring forth (no pun intended) Windows NT (their 32 > bit version of windows) and it carried on from there to this day. So > software engineering is a surviving skill through time. Hope some of the > younger readers of these emails understand this, you work with hardware but > don't get constrained by it. > > Regards, > John S > > > On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 12:07 PM John Sarabacha <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Hi Again Martin, > > How things have changed, when I worked at DEC (PDP11s, VAX, Alpha ...) > > many years ago where are they (DEC) now? > > Part of HP now, did you know that DEC was offered to own unix (turned it > > down). They were also the 1st to use expert systems to configure PDP, > Vax, > > microVax, ... hardware configurations. HP was the 1st to bring out RISC > > processors and DEC responded with their 64 bit RISC Alphas. Now the > > chinese are dominating the RISC market using royalty-free RISCV core > chips, > > ARM (risc) is still ahead for the time being in high end processors. The > > Cortex-M7 platform that I referenced before is approx 35$us and it easily > > outperforms the dated DEC Alpha which at one time ran the internet search > > engine of choice. Just ranting on in my so-called retirement years. > > > > Best Regards, > > John S > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 10:07 AM John Sarabacha <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > >> Hi Again Martin, > >> A lot of useful information from that link, thanks again. There is a > >> temptation to use C for these core (foundation words - mcu assembly > words) > >> since compilers these days can generate very efficient code. The issue > is > >> amForth tries to be compatible with the 2012 forth standard whereas > other C > >> based forths like ueForth don't. It still makes more sense just to make > the > >> adjustments to amForth assembly code keeping in mind the C forth code > >> (looked at) compiled with -S (for the assembler code) may deviate from > this > >> standard. > >> > >> Best Regards, > >> John S > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 9:15 AM John Sarabacha <[email protected]> > >> wrote: > >> > >>> Thanks Martin, > >>> That information saves me a lot of time, what I was also thinking of > >>> doing is letting the compiler tell me > >>> how to be compatible, this is where ueForth (being in C) can help, for > >>> each C word compile with -S and > >>> see what the assembly listing looks like and compare this to what the > >>> amForth word has and make the adjustments. > >>> > >>> Thanks again, > >>> John S > >>> > >>> On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 8:52 AM Martin Kobetic <[email protected]> > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>>> Hi John, > >>>> That is a sweet looking board. I need to resist the urge to get one > too. > >>>> I've got plenty that I didn't even use yet :). > >>>> > >>>> I'm not that well versed in ARM yet, but the errors sound like the > >>>> instruction mode > >>>> is being switched around for some reason. Maybe we need to ensure > >>>> somehow > >>>> that > >>>> it sticks with Thumb? There may also be some issue with interworking, > I > >>>> haven't quite > >>>> wrapped my head around that either. A lot to do still. > >>>> > >>>> Some interesting references > >>>> > >>>> > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28669905/what-is-the-difference-between-the-arm-thumb-and-thumb-2-instruction-encodings > >>>> > >>>> > https://developer.arm.com/documentation/dui0203/j/interworking-arm-and-thumb/about-interworking > >>>> > >>>> Best regards, > >>>> Martin > >>>> > >>>> On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 12:40 AM John Sarabacha <[email protected] > > > >>>> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> > Hi Martin, > >>>> > The Cortex-M7 doesn't like the assembler instructions for arm/words, > >>>> some > >>>> > examples: > >>>> > ./words/dup.s:4: Error: Thumb does not support this addressing mode > >>>> -- `str > >>>> > tos,[psp,#-4]!' > >>>> > ./words/nip.s:4: Error: instruction not supported in Thumb16 mode -- > >>>> `adds > >>>> > psp,#4' > >>>> > ./words/abs.s:4: Error: Thumb does not support conditional execution > >>>> > ./words/abs.s:5: Error: incorrect condition in IT block -- `b > DO_NEXT > >>>> > > >>>> > Tried different options for the GCC compiler/assembler without > >>>> success. > >>>> > > >>>> > FYI > >>>> > John S > >>>> > > >>>> > On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 1:13 PM John Sarabacha < > [email protected]> > >>>> > wrote: > >>>> > > >>>> > > Hi Martin, > >>>> > > Some information on my Cortex-M7 based target platform, Arduino > >>>> > > development environment is being is used > >>>> > > https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy41.html > >>>> > > > >>>> > > Regards, > >>>> > > John S > >>>> > > > >>>> > > On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 12:04 PM John Sarabacha < > >>>> [email protected]> > >>>> > > wrote: > >>>> > > > >>>> > >> Hi Martin, > >>>> > >> I will be trying to host amForth on an arm-m7 (600Mhz) platform > >>>> which > >>>> > was > >>>> > >> being evaluated a few years ago. I will be using the same process > >>>> as I > >>>> > used > >>>> > >> for CH32X033. Any learning I will pass on, M7 is significantly > >>>> different > >>>> > >> than M4 so by sticking to thumb type instructions there should be > >>>> some > >>>> > >> common issues. > >>>> > >> > >>>> > >> Regards, > >>>> > >> John S > >>>> > >> > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> > >>>> _______________________________________________ > >>>> Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ > >>>> [email protected] > >>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel > >>>> > >>> > > _______________________________________________ > Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel > _______________________________________________ Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel
