3 ms·

> could you hazard a guess at what dialect this very old Forth game from Byte magazine was written in? The writeup identifies the original Forth source/version

by lutusp 1y ago

> could you hazard a guess at what dialect this very old Forth game from Byte magazine was written in? The writeup identifies the original Forth source/version as most likely FIGForth '78, so I assume that's correct. This doesn't mean it has no code borrowed from elsewhere, and we might never sort that out. I should add that Forth has the property that you go from nothing to writing programs pretty quickly, because it's all based on RPN (like HP calculators) and there's very little infrastructure required to create a usable environment -- unlike virtually every other language I've created/used. My having been a fan of HP calculators beforehand played a part in getting me started with Forth -- RPN was an aspect of Forth I didn't have to learn before getting started. Remember also that the 6502 (the Apple II processor) had a rather easily understood assembly instruction set, which meant any adept 6502 programmer could basically decode and grab other people's work without needing a source listing. No longer true for modern processors. Guess how we updated each other during program development and updates? Ready? 5 1/4 inch floppy disks stuffed into big manila envelopes, then snail-mailed. No, not making this up.

ErroneousBosh 1y ago
Yup. I am old enough to have posted cassettes rather than 5.25" floppies, although I was using a Z80-based machine that ran Forth and took 5.25" floppies as late as the early 90s. Wildly specialised bit of kit, and I wish I'd stolen it when I had the chance because it's probably been thrown over the side of an oil rig by now. The first Forth machine I used was the Jupiter Ace, which was a home computer sold in the UK by a couple of guys who spun their company off from Sinclair. It was a bit too underpowered and a bit too late and a bit too weird to really "land" - everyone either had a ZX Spectrum or a Commodore 64 by then, and schools and rich kids had BBC Micros (I got right into 6502 machine code on the one we had in school when I was about 9, and then got my hands on its predecessor, the Acorn Atom). I also had a couple of Epson HX20s that the company my dad worked for had used as data loggers, which had Forth ROMs fitted. That's how I got right into 6809 programming, and that chip is ludicrously suitable for Forth! I got Cosmic Conquest working on an Apple II emulator but the support code around getting it working is frankly terrifying. I used a fig-Forth disk, and wrote my own implementations of the graphics words used there, which I guess is what the original author did. Tracking them down has so far proved impossible, and it's quite likely they are no longer around.

by lutusp 1y ago

ErroneousBosh 1y ago

Yup. I am old enough to have posted cassettes rather than 5.25" floppies, although I was using a Z80-based machine that ran Forth and took 5.25" floppies as late as the early 90s. Wildly specialised bit of kit, and I wish I'd stolen it when I had the chance because it's probably been thrown over the side of an oil rig by now. The first Forth machine I used was the Jupiter Ace, which was a home computer sold in the UK by a couple of guys who spun their company off from Sinclair. It was a bit too underpowered and a bit too late and a bit too weird to really "land" - everyone either had a ZX Spectrum or a Commodore 64 by then, and schools and rich kids had BBC Micros (I got right into 6502 machine code on the one we had in school when I was about 9, and then got my hands on its predecessor, the Acorn Atom). I also had a couple of Epson HX20s that the company my dad worked for had used as data loggers, which had Forth ROMs fitted. That's how I got right into 6809 programming, and that chip is ludicrously suitable for Forth! I got Cosmic Conquest working on an Apple II emulator but the support code around getting it working is frankly terrifying. I used a fig-Forth disk, and wrote my own implementations of the graphics words used there, which I guess is what the original author did. Tracking them down has so far proved impossible, and it's quite likely they are no longer around.