Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Novix chip with Computer Cowboys software by Calvin Moore
Message-ID: <17430@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 1 May 88 16:27:30 GMT
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 22


      I just saw the Novix chip running under the control of the silliest
user interface I have ever encountered.  This thing has a programmer-oriented
interface based on three (3) buttons and a color CRT.  No keyboard.  The
three buttons are labelled R, G, and B, and the top line of the CRT shows
eight menu selections in the various color combinations obtainable by combining
red, green, and blue.  The keyboard is interpreted in a chord sense, so that
if you push G and B at the same time, this is interpreted as violet and the
violet menu item is selected.  The basic concept seems to be that one scrolls
forward or backward by screen, then by line, then by word, then by character,
and then selects the desired character in the character set by scrolling
through the character set.

      Incidentally, the board for this system is about 4"x4", and, for no
obvious compelling reason, has ICs on both sides.  The system consists of
this board, a 3.5" diskette drive, and a color TTL-interfaced CRT.

      The Forth implementation lacks DO and LOOP.  There's an absolutely
hysterical bug: multiply only works for even multipliers.  This is documented;
the documentation claims that "most multipliers are even", you see.

      					John Nagle