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From: koopman@a.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Philip Koopman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth in the Marketplace
Summary: C was the support issue, not Forth
Message-ID: <12126@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 91 16:26:35 GMT
References: <2418.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 33

In article <2418.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>, ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie) writes:
>  According to the 2/11/91 issue of EE Times, ...
>       still excellent, but we didn't anticipate the amount of
>       software and support tools that we had to develop for the
>       processors," [Semiconductor chief Jon] Cornell said.  He
>       added that the RTX is "still alive" but would not elaborate.
The tools Cornell was talking about were the C compiler and other
conventional language support stuff (as well as ICE and hardware
support items).  Forth was a done deal and already mostly
paid for (a PD Forth by Rick VanNorman, and a commercial Forth
from Steve Pelc).  These were probably 10% of the total software
tools cost.

"Still alive" means if you want rad-hard parts, there is still
active development work (these parts are *very* expensive!).
If you want commercial parts, they have some still on the shelves.

>  I think this amplifies what I've said previously about one of
>  Forth's problems being the lack of common tools.  Every Forth
>  programmer does not need his/her own unique library of routines
>  for strings, arrays, math, graphics, and so on.
The Harris Forth customers rolled their own just like other Forthers.
Strings, arrays, graphics, etc. were completely useless to most
commercial RTX system-builders -- they were into little tiny
embedded controller boards.  The only real call for support
was for a Floating Point package, which I provided from my
MVP Forth floating point book (and which was to be augmented
with a commercial DSP library for the 2010).

  Phil Koopman                koopman@greyhound.ece.cmu.edu   Internet
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