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From: UNBCIC@BRFAPESP.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: BASIS ?? - Comments...
Message-ID: <9102041442.AA19094@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 4 Feb 91 11:31:00 GMT
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> New control flow words:
>    AHEAD (unconditional forward branch), SO (ROLL for control flow tokens),
>    STILL (PICK for control flow tokens).  These words complete the set of
>    control flow primitives, allowing the creation of user-defined control
>    structures to implement *any* control flow graph.

I like this.

> Clarification of input stream mechanism:
>    The new variable BLOCK-FID contains the fileid of the file containing
>    the blocks accessible via BLOCK, BUFFER, and LOAD.  If BLOCK-FID is
>    zero, the blocks come from the system default block space (which may
>    or may not be a file).  This does not affect interpretation from text
>    files; that still depends on the SOURCE-FILE value (-1 for string input,
>    0 for keyboard input, otherwise it's the fileid of the input text file).

As long as it works...

> Conditional compilation:
>    A wordset for conditional compilation is going out for letter ballot.
>    It looks like it may pass.  The proposal calls for fully-nestable,
>    immediate words IFTRUE OTHERWISE IFEND (same names as in Forth 83).

Interesting...

> Multitasking:
>    All mention of multitasking has been moved to an appendix that describes
>    the "traditions" of Forth multitasking.

Interesting...

> Decompiler:
>    New word SEE (decompiler) added to the toolkit extension wordset.
>    The decompilation format is system-dependent.

I don't think it's necessary, although I wouldn't buy a Forth that didn't have
it...

> EMIT?:
>    EMIT? (check for output device ready) added to toolkit extension wordset.

Is there anyway to print to printer? This looks useful only if you can
re-direct to printer or serial port or whatever, and then it would be more
useful in another wordset. (at least, not in the same of SEE -- A subroutine
threaded Forth can have EMIT? but cannot have SEE.)

> Search order:
>    ADDITIONS changed back to DEFINITIONS , FORTH-WORDLIST added to search
FORTH-WORDLIST is the old FORTH vocabulary, isn't it? Just fine with me...

>    order wordset, ISOLATE removed.  The search order wordset now contains
No ISOLATE?

>    a precisely-defined "primitive" set of search order words, suitable for
>    use as tools to implement any search order scheme.  The search order
>    extension wordset now contains ONLY ALSO etc.

Yeah.

> AT-XY:
>    Popular sentiment suggests that the name >COLROW sucks, so the name was
>    changed to "AT-XY" (just AT was suggested, but that name has inconsistent
>    common usage).

Ok.

> GET-DATE:
>    (or maybe it's GET-TIME ??)  Returns the "wall clock" time as
>    ( -- sec min hrs day mon year )  sec:0-59 min:0-59 hrs:0-23 day:1-31
>    mon:1-12 year:e.g.1991  (in CORE EXT wordset).

GREAT!!! (Just more two words, GET-GWTIME and DAYLIGHT-TIME?, and we get a
complete time wordset!!! ;-)

> Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM

                              (8-DCS)
Daniel C. Sobral
UNBCIC@BRFAPESP.BITNET