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From: KX10LYC0@TWNITRI1.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: RE: Public domain RISC assemblers
Message-ID: <9106281416.AA03504@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 26 Jun 91 09:53:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9106281416.AA03504
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Reply-To: KX10LYC0%TWNITRI1.BITNET%CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
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     I quite agree the comments of Mitch on Forth public domain matter.

     When the other languages (ex. BASIC, Pascal, C, Fortran, LISP, etc.) are
supported and provided by the software companies (ex. Microsoft, Borland, etc.)
the Forth seems somewhat like an ET. Although there are some Forth providers
(ex. Forth, Inc., Mitch's Forthware, etc.) but their influence is little when
compared to the above s/w companies.

    Why not these big s/w manufactures put the Forth on their product line and
sell it?

    I think the main problem is that the Forth market is - VERY SMALL -,
but not it is a public domain language. I am interesting to know does someone
have the data about Forth market in 1990 (how many dollars? one million?).

    You can easily find the C compilers on public domain, but the Microsoft &
Borland still sell their C tools well. The reason is very obvious that many
programmers use C language and its market is very large. So you can pick the
C references/books/tools in bookstores/software-houses conveniently.

    I don't quite understand the situation in USA, at least, if you want to
find some books/references/tools about Forth in Taiwan, I bet you will be a
sitting duck.

    Selling Forth is a good strategy for providing support to Forth users.
But when the Forth tools is not very widely available, - Public Domain - is
another way to fertilize Forth. When more and more programmers use Forth, then
the market will become larger gradually.

    Certainly, I will spend $200 to buy SPARC Forth, but I still wish someone
will put it on public domain like ZEN, eForth, L&P F83 etc. 'cause this will
help the people learn Forth more easily and conveniently.

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   my-openion worng? if I_apologize
                     then I_still_love_Forth

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     Yin-Chih Lin

     Bitnet: KX10LYC0@TWNITRI1
     Internet: KX10LYC0%TWNITRI1.Bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU