Oliver Fromme wrote:
*snip* (evidence that senility is wasted on the aged...)
so you can't implement it in Forth.
nineteen NINETY 7/8 ???
IIRC, Chuck had ported FORTH to over a dozen machine/CPU architectures
before the *1970's* were out.
Sun didn't pick it just 'coz it fit into an affordable chip. They picked
it because it could do everything they needed to have done, and UNLIKE
hand-generated machine-code, was already incredibly portable.
Essential, since they never were a one-CPU outfit.
But were - at one time - a *BSD-based outfit...
had htey needed it, they'd have added a second PROM, and not noticed the
cost.
D'you have any idea what a Sun workstation cost in relative terms of the
day?
Typically the better part of a full year's pay for many of the folks
privileged to share the use of one. And shared they most often were.
As to why FORTH was appreciated ...
Just try keeping the proper set from among a half-dozen different
families of op codes matched to the processor actually at hand on any
given day... and awaiting news of your failure to arrive - very slowly -
over an ASR-33... if not neon indicators. LED's were still-yet the
stuff of science-fiction.
Telling folks who HAVE done - 30 years ago - and in machine-code prior
to FORTH - that a particular 'something' can *no longer BE done* with
the tools we were ever-so grateful to have....
is a hex:
'EA' (6502),
'00' (8080),
'12' (6809)
IOW .....'NOP'.... waste of bus-cycles.
;-)
Bill
