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From: koopman@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Philip Koopman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth
Message-ID: <167@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: Tue, 13-Oct-87 17:32:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: PT.167
Posted: Tue Oct 13 17:32:32 1987
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Summary: Successful Forth Projects


There are a surprisingly large number of successful Forth applications,
but many companies choose to downplay or conceal the fact that Forth
was used in the development of a product.  I'll list some of the
projects that I have heard about.  Consider it a random sampling:

For a while (still maybe?) all the prototyping for Atari video game
machines was done in Forth.

At least two space shuttle experiments use Forth.  One has already
flown (I think it was a synthetic aperature radar) and would have
been a complete failure if any other language had been used due
to the need for in-flight reprogramming (these are the words
of the people who ran the experiment.)

Forth Inc. installed an automation system at a Saudi airport 
involving several hundred microprocessors and several thousand
sensors.  Everything was done in Forth.

The Peachtree PC accounting software was written in MVP-FORTH.

The diesel engine diagnostic expert system (one of the first
ones that found commercial use) was not written in Lisp, nor
Prolog -- it was written in Forth.

The Air Force is using Forth to control an autoclave that makes
composite material airplane wings.  The program cures parts
better than any person or any other program can by a factor of
two or three (both in time and in success rate.)

I have personally written a motel control and cash management
program in Forth.

Forth usually finds a good home in systems where complex programs
must be implemented by a small team in a computationally limited
environment.  Forth excells in situations where other programming
languages would run out of memory and/or run out of CPU power.
Forth has the disadvantage that it often comes without a complete
set of tools (e.g. floating point math, string handling.)

Unfortunately, many of the most vocal Forth advocates have world
views which do not coincide with the way it is in the "Real World".
Since Forth is not perceived by most people as a mainstream language,
some companies view their use of Forth as something to keep quiet.

More information about Forth applications is contained in the
Journal of Forth Applications and Reasearch, as well as the
proceedings of the yearly Rochester Forth conference.

Phil Koopman

Arpanet:   koopman@farada.ece.cmu.edu