From: "Dwight K. Elvey" 
To: atm{at}shore.net
Reply-To: "Dwight K. Elvey" 


Hi
 I know what you mean about working on someone else's
code. I think the biggest problem is poor naming of colon routines. I was
asked to help fix some code that was done on a AIM65 to control servo
writing of hard disk. People tend to write too little for good names.
Things like B5 should have gone away with the older BASICs.
 Still, if one remembers or knows a little about the
application, one can often turn an update quickly. We had a system that had
been out in the field for about three years and the customer wanted some
enhancements. They were quite surprised when I gave them a beta the day
after we got the list. It worked as requested so no additional changes were
made. Maintenance can be easy or hard.
 All that to the side, for a hardware engineer type, I've
not found anything better for checking out hardware. There is a big
different between the edit-compile-link-debug cycle and the debug-edit
cycle( compile is not noticed ). Immediacy is the word I'm looking for.
 I think it may be easier to write code that can not be
understood latter in Forth than other languages ( well, there is APL ) but
I think it is partly related to the compactness of the code and poor
naming. When someone sees how elegant functional code can be done by
someone that is good, it is hard to see why one would want to get lost in
the formats of other languages.
 Needless to say, I still think the language is right, it
is just that much of the training was done poorly. Dwight


>From: "Scott Berfield" 
>
> Wow - I haven't heard anyone even mention Forth in years. We used to
>call it a write once, read never language. Powerful, compact, and
>totally incomprehensible a day after you write the code. :)
>
>Some of the most violent arguments I ever heard back in the 80's were
>over Forth - proponents of the language tended to get a little, well -
>zealous in its defense. It is a great language for doing embedded
>control applications - as long as you never have to try to maintain
>someone else's code.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-atm{at}shore.net [mailto:owner-atm{at}shore.net] On Behalf Of
>Dwight K. Elvey
>Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 9:50 AM
>To: atm{at}shore.net
>Subject: Re: ATM: Field Rotation and GoTo Scopes
>
>
>
>Hi
> Also look at evaluation boards from the original manufactures.
>These are usually cheaper than other SBC's. Another processor to look at
>is the 80186/188's. These have been around for a long time but can be
>handy. I have an evaluation board that was made by AMD ( we no longer
>make 186's ). It comes with enough flash and RAM to easily meet the
>requirements of such a system.
> For languages, you should also consider using Forth. Especially while
>you are debugging things. Once you have your hardware up and running,
>you may want to switch to something like C because of source
>availability. It is quite easy to put a native Forth on most SBC's. This
>give one the ability to interactively debug and work out algorithms.
>I've used this language on all of the embedded applications I used to do
>at a previous employer( actually two back ). I even did one project that
>I rewrote things into C and still figured that I saved about a month on
>the project( a customer requirement ).
>Later
>Dwight
>
>>From: "Emery Greg" 
>>
>>Tom:
>>
>>Your welcome to pass along my email to your friend - I am not working
>>on it
>now, but hopefully in a year or so :).
>>
>>In terms of cost, if a cheap laptop can be bought second hand from the
>internet- the laptop and stepper interface via the parallel port is of
>the same order of cost as the controller board or SBC.  If you are
>buying a new laptop, microcontrollers or SBC is much cheaper.
>>
>>I just hate going to one of my clubs darksites and seeing a **&^%%!!!
>>laptop
>screen - even if it is in night vision mode.
>>
>>Jeff,
>>
>> I remember seeing the Rabbits.  The Motorola or Zilog seemed neet as
>> well -
>Basic or C language programming, in circuit EEPROM all via RS232.
>Doesn't get more convenient than that :):)
>>
>>ttfn
>>greg
>>
>---snip---
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