Re: [9fans] What are you using Plan 9 for?
That's very neat ! You might want to consider using a derivative of that PDP-11 work in a IoT (Internet of Things) context. IoT devices really need a better programming environment than that provided by Arduino development tools. On 28 June 2018 at 02:20, Brian L. Stuart wrote: > On Wed, 6/20/18, Ethan A. Gardener wrote: > > but on the back burner is a > > Forth-based project; a sort of operating system where the > > primary interface to all tasks is a Forth interpreter. So > > far, I've written the basics of a text editor. It's > > *very* little code! > > I love seeing this idea coming back around. Way back > in college, one of my senior projects was a little OS on > the PDP-11 that was done exactly this way. The app > language and the command language were a Forth > implementation I had done out of curiosity in my freshman > year. About a year and half ago, I got it running again, > first in simh, then on a little LSI-11 in those cute little > BA11-VA boxes. It was wild seeing that running again > after over 30 years, and I found and fixed a concurrency > bug. :) One of my students did (mostly just started on) > a project his past term that's gotten me to thinking a > little about reimplementing the whole thing on a Pi. > > BLS > >
Re: [9fans] What are you using Plan 9 for?
Talking of Forth, it is worthwhile to note that Postscript as implemented by Adobe for laser printers and subsequently for photo-typesetters, etc is a very good example of Forth-like system running on bare metal and providing an application specific programming + operating environment. Years ago, Byte magazine published an excellent book "Threaded Interpreted Languages" (TIL) which contains lots of good information, including details of how to roll your own using the Z80 (yes, the book is that old). On 27 June 2018 at 15:18, Iruatã Souza wrote: > On Wed, Jun 20, 2018 at 10:39 PM, Kurt H Maier wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 20, 2018 at 10:35:42PM +0100, Ethan A. Gardener wrote: > >> > >> a sort of operating system where the primary interface to all tasks is > >> a Forth interpreter. > > > > I think we've talked about this in another venue some years back, but I > > often thing of the OpenFirmware implementation used by the OLPC XO-1 > > laptop. Instead of a BIOS or UEFI or linux trash in their stead, the > > system was managed by an OpenFirmware installation, much of which was > > written in Forth, and whose primary interface was a Forth shell. This > > environment had complete access to the hardware of the system, which > > was used by the project to create really comprehensive hardware > > diagnostics tools. > > > > Kurt and Ethan, > > I am sure you know that, but Forth has basically started as an > language + operating system and stayed there for quite some time. > Forth hosted on other operating systems is the (not so) new thing. > > For a "recent" instance of Forth language+os for the pc, check Andy > Valencia's ForthOS. > >
Re: [9fans] What are you using Plan 9 for?
On Tue, Jun 26, 2018, at 7:36 AM, Tyga wrote: > Re: your comment about trackpad / vertical mouse. > > I had a similar RSI problem a couple of years ago. I solved it by using a > Logitech trackball with my right hand - but only to move the cursor and I > used a MS optical mouse with the tracking window taped over so that I would > only use it to click or scroll with the left hand. I had to tape over the > window so that moving the mouse wouldn't actually move the pointer which I > had carefully positioned with the trackball. Cured the RSI and now able to > even use a normal trackpad on a notebook for short periods of time. But I do > prefer to use my desktop for serious amounts of work. Good to know! I have a Twiddler one-handed keyboard with a poor pointer control stick, but at least it has 3 buttons. I should try using it with a mouse like this. I've also enjoyed playing Minecraft with the mouse buttons remapped to keys. It's basically the same thing: movement right-handed, buttons left-handed. My major problem with mouse or keyboard is arm support. I'm "tall sitting down", so I need armrests and a desk much higher than average. I remember a normal mouse being fine so long as the desk was high enough.
Re: [9fans] What are you using Plan 9 for?
On Tue, Jun 26, 2018, at 6:17 AM, 刘宇宝 wrote: > > > > On Jun 25, 2018, at 5:33 PM, Ethan A. Gardener wrote: > > > > > > I picked up an idea from microapl.com, workspaces. Saving system > > state is one of my goals for my OS, and the concept of workspaces > > pertaining to separate tasks keeps popping up when I get ideas. For > > those who don't know, it's this: > > > > Lisp and Smalltalk both have similar thing, dump whole image (or > "world") to disk and load to memory next time. I was sure something else saved the world ( :) ) too, but I couldn't remember. Of course Lisp and Smalltalk do it. It is a bit of a risk doing it in Forth because memory corruption is more likely, but I think it can work with careful, not-too-simple saving code -- checksums perhaps. > > The GUI of Lisp Machine and Squeak looks elegant, of course Rio is very > elegant too :-) > > * https://static.loomcom.com/genera/genera-install.html > * https://squeak.org/ Squeak is another thing I "should have" properly tried. It was the basis for this 3D environment where, instead of sending all the data to all clients, code snippets were sent instead. The clients were synchronized so they all rendered the same. Moving around made me dizzy, though. > > Regards, > Yubao Liu > -- The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer
Re: [9fans] What are you using Plan 9 for?
On Tue, Jun 26, 2018, at 4:24 AM, 刘宇宝 wrote: > > Recently I read Rob Pike's "Systems Software Research is Irrelevant", I > felt pity, and I was wondering what the operating system would look like > in the future, here is my stupid optimistic predication: I felt sad when I read it too, but like you, I hope the prevalence of KVM will bring a new wave of OS development. :) > > • Server hardware will become extreme powerful, TB DRAM, non-volatile > memory, NVMe disk, 100Gb ethernet, the paradigm of separate cpu server, > file server, (a little fat) terminals will come back to be mainstream, > network of piles of cheap PCs will go away. > • Linux，even BSD，became the underlying device driver and "BIOS", this > is almost the current situation, Linux KVM, Xen + Linux dom0 hide > details of hardware. This layer takes care maximum hardware support and > raw performance. > • *Distributed* operating systems above KVM/Xen will step into a period > of great development, hardware support and maximum raw performance are > not top priorities, *OS native* fault tolerance, simple and clear > distributed process scheduling, easy and consistent IPC/RPC API will > win, Google Kubernetes will die. Many ideas of Plan 9 will revive, just > like memory garbage collecting revived after about 30 years. > > Regards, > Yubao Liu >
Re: [9fans] What are you using Plan 9 for?
On Wed, 6/20/18, Ethan A. Gardener wrote: > but on the back burner is a > Forth-based project; a sort of operating system where the > primary interface to all tasks is a Forth interpreter. So > far, I've written the basics of a text editor. It's > *very* little code! I love seeing this idea coming back around. Way back in college, one of my senior projects was a little OS on the PDP-11 that was done exactly this way. The app language and the command language were a Forth implementation I had done out of curiosity in my freshman year. About a year and half ago, I got it running again, first in simh, then on a little LSI-11 in those cute little BA11-VA boxes. It was wild seeing that running again after over 30 years, and I found and fixed a concurrency bug. :) One of my students did (mostly just started on) a project his past term that's gotten me to thinking a little about reimplementing the whole thing on a Pi. BLS
