Hi,

I took a look at the FreeDOS site (and mailed the author about the 3 year old NASM version he uses ;-). I also noticed they don't have any forth there. I was not suprised, but I saw a possibility.

I and wossname have been playing around with forth for a while now, by writing small, weird and mostly quite useless forth systems, so I though it would be nice to come up with something _good_.

If we can do a small forth, we might get it accepted by the FreeDOS project as a part of their main distribution, and then we would really have something to put on our front page :-)

So, what kind of forth should we write? I and woss have experimented with different variants of the basic forth idea. Don't know how he did it, but I figured out how to do and what to implement as I wrote it. With a bit more planning, and some effort to keep it at least a bit structured, I think the final thing could become - quite OK.

One idea I'd like to implement, is dynamic relocation. When you redefine a word, you should not have to recompile everything. This also adds the possibility to modify the forth from within itself - while it's running. Does it sound hard? :-) I've figured out most of it already, and I think we should be able to implement it.

So, who might be interested? In theory, all decent assembly programmers in the YPN, but I guess it will be either wossname and me, or me alone :-)

But admit it would be a cool thing to get YPN code into a big project like FreeDOS!

/Robert

I like the idea of involving the YPN in greater projects. Alas I don't know asm... [addsig]

That's OK MoX, we still love you
(But to be on the safe side, learn asm)

/Robert

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but what is a forth, really? Good idea however

A forth intepreter/compiler. Check a document called "Forth - an underview" for more information. (Before anyone asks anything: www.google.com)

/Robert

[ This Message was edited by: robost86 on 2002-05-16 20:23 ]

I don't know much assembler (still not ), but it sounds interesting. I won't be able to participate in that, but I'd like to advance my assembler skills. Maybe I'll also write some little compilers/interpreters later days
[addsig]

Forths are usually pretty easy to write (compared to e.g. a C compiler). It's also easy to extend the forth by writing new words for it in assembly language or forth. I wrote my first forth in about a day, and it was quite big. And I usually need weeks to do things

it's nice idea.

but it will fail. there are not much geeks like rob_ert.

good luck.

One rob_ert is enough.

I thought of the idea with dynamic relocation, and found it maybe was a bit too complex. Anyway, we could either ignore that, or make a cheap, half-working variant

Quote:
robost86 wrote:
But admit it would be a cool thing to get YPN code into a big project like FreeDOS!

nice, very nice idea
Quote:
On 2002-05-17 00:00, robost86 wrote:
Forths are usually pretty easy to write (compared to e.g. a C compiler). It's also easy to extend the forth by writing new words for it in assembly language or forth. I wrote my first forth in about a day, and it was quite big. And I usually need weeks to do things

Since I know C better than forth, it should be easier for me to write a compiler
But, what about primula, and others projets you started ?

Maybe it'd be a good idea to change the project goal to "create a simple, clean and fast forth for 16-bit x86 CPUs using DOS".

It should of course be able to load source files, and create stand-alone executables.

If anyone is interested, tell me, otherwise I'll do it myself.

i am interested in the outcome of the project but as i don't know asm, that's almost everything i can do to help

Getting YPN code in to a big project like FreeDOS sounds great, but think about it... how many YPNers know Forth? Maybe 3 or 4. Now, how many people in the real world need another Forth? I don't mean this to be discouraging, and you can do anything you wish (and yes, it does sound like fun), but why not do something that you and other people need that hasn't been done (or hasn't been done _right_) yet?

Don't take me to seriously, I'm just MooKeen.
-Moo

nonama:
oh, I think there is at least one other freak in here like robert
aren't you like rob, oink?
[addsig]

Oh yes, ma, I always knew I would be famous~!

count me in. for my ego's sake.

I know there's been many forths written before, but FreeDOS has had even crappier programs than my ones in it

So, I don't think I'm over-optimistic.

To oink: I jump from project to project, can't put my efforts into one project only.

What if... we were to make a YPN Linux distribution packaged with our own tools and such? Not that it would be a good idea to replace every single "already good" tool out there; just the needed things that don't already exist. I know there are many other projects we chould do, anybody else have an idea?

-Moo

The idea of a distribution is nice, but:

Where are all these tools you mentioned? [addsig]

I'd say, let's write some cool tools first, and create the distro later .

Exactly, Peter.

You guys don't get it. The one rob_ert is going to do it all alone, even if no one else is capable of understanding what its all about until its complete...

A FreeDOS distro would be easier to make

When I think of it, I have enormous ASM skills, and I'm (as you all know) really great at forth, so I guess it would be a really bad idea not having me in this project.
That means, I could write a word printing "geqo" to the screen, if you'd like.

i would definitely join, but i got a few of my own things going on, and i dunno much asm and no forth whatsoever.

Of course I would most definitely join, too, but if I really think of it I won'T join after all. [addsig]

MooKeen: A Linux distro would rule!! With diffirent apps that YPN members contribute, great!

nonama: rob_ert's idea won't fail.

rob_ert: cool idea, - wait, have I already tried your "nano4th" compiler? I have!
Well, I know no asm nor forth, some C/C++.

Thanks, ComWizz.

hrm, i love asm but why should i use forth?

I just realized this idea lollipops. I think a pure Forth OS to play with would be funnier. What do you think?