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Speaking of Forth... Here's a fun bit of trivia. PowerPC and Intel Macs used to use Open Firmware[0] to define their firmware (BIOS). Macs with M1[1] archite

Speaking of Forth... Here's a fun bit of trivia. PowerPC and Intel Macs used to use Open Firmware[0] to define their firmware (BIOS). Macs with M1[1] architectures and subsequent generations may also, but I cannot attest to this. For those Macs which do use Open Firmware[0], a key implementation component of it is FCode[2]: FCode is a Forth dialect compliant to ANS Forth, that is available in two different forms: source and bytecode. FCode bytecode is the compiled form of FCode source. So if anyone asks, "who uses Forth anymore?", a correct answer is - a large percentage of everyday people. 0 - https://www.openbios.org/Open_Firmware.html https://www.openbios.org/Open_Firmware.html 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M1 2 - https://www.openbios.org/Forth_FCode.html https://www.openbios.org/Forth_FCode.html

bdowling 1y ago
More trivia: OpenFirmware is descended from Sun Microsystems' firmware, OpenBoot. Add-on cards could contain Forth code that would initialize their own hardware and provide a device driver that could be used at boot time (e.g., a network card could initialize itself and provide commands to download and boot an OS off the network).
LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
There is no OpenFirmware on Intel Macs. They used EFI, which isn't related to any sort of FORTH. That got the rest of X86/AMD64 world UEFI. Whatever the M+ ARM based Macs use is totally unrelated, too. Adieu to logic, uh? (Which LLM hallucinated that stuff for you?)
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  >> PowerPC and Intel Macs used to use Open Firmware ... > There is no OpenFirmware on Intel Macs. They used EFI ... I thought I remembered playing with Forth at the boot prompt on an Intel Mac. I guess I was wrong and it was on a PowerPC Mac. > Adieu to logic, uh? (Which LLM hallucinated that stuff for you?) Human memory. Yours may be perfect in every recall, being the first human ever to be able to claim this miraculous ability, but I highly doubt it.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
    SCNR with that username. Think of me as moody Marvin, if it helps ;>

bdowling 1y ago

More trivia: OpenFirmware is descended from Sun Microsystems' firmware, OpenBoot. Add-on cards could contain Forth code that would initialize their own hardware and provide a device driver that could be used at boot time (e.g., a network card could initialize itself and provide commands to download and boot an OS off the network).

LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago

There is no OpenFirmware on Intel Macs. They used EFI, which isn't related to any sort of FORTH. That got the rest of X86/AMD64 world UEFI. Whatever the M+ ARM based Macs use is totally unrelated, too. Adieu to logic, uh? (Which LLM hallucinated that stuff for you?)

AdieuToLogic 1y ago
>> PowerPC and Intel Macs used to use Open Firmware ... > There is no OpenFirmware on Intel Macs. They used EFI ... I thought I remembered playing with Forth at the boot prompt on an Intel Mac. I guess I was wrong and it was on a PowerPC Mac. > Adieu to logic, uh? (Which LLM hallucinated that stuff for you?) Human memory. Yours may be perfect in every recall, being the first human ever to be able to claim this miraculous ability, but I highly doubt it.
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
  SCNR with that username. Think of me as moody Marvin, if it helps ;>