Forth in a direction that will be more acceptable to non-Forth programmers. I have tried to minimize these problems wherever possible. I challenge you as a programmer, developer or observer to look at the F.PC public domain Forth system and compare it to what you are using now. You w~l probably find many things you don't ~ e , but you might find something you do. Tom Zimmer 292 Falcato Drive Mflpitas, CA 95035 408/432-4643 (Wk) 408/263-8859 (Hm) T o m Zin~mer is a S e n i o r S o f t w a r e E n g i o e e r a t M a x t o r ~ : o r p g r a f i o n . H e Is t h e p r i n c i b a l i m p l e m e n t o r o f F-PC, a p u b l i c d o m a i n Forth for MS-DOS c o m p u t e r s . 3. "Files are m o r e 'natural'." Bunk. This ~gument comes from those who have worked with files all their lives. I've heard similar arguments promoting the superiority of punched cards to video display terminals. I find a screen representation quite "natural" - to me. Ted Nelson finds hyperteg "natural." What is most "natural" depends on how one is wained! 4. "Files will interlace to other IBM PC applications." A reason with some validity. IBMPC users (andAtari, Amiga, and Mac users) may certainly want to share data between Forth and the wealth of other software they can obtain. But we are now dearly identifying a part/cu/ar category ofapplimtfon. Do we wish to dedare Forth a data processing language? Are we to dedare embedded control applications forever beyond our ken? I applaud the ANSI committee for their refusal (so far) to dispense with blocks. They have rightly recogn/zed that the derision of blocks vs. text files is an engineering decision, to be decided on a case-by-case basis, and not once for all time. Ifwe forget this if we start seeing this decision as "divinely ordained" - we will lose touch with the real world, and Fomh will devolve into an abstract pedagogical vehicle, suitable not for solving problems, but only for convening debating societies. T-Recursive Technology 55 McCaul St. # 14 Toronto, Ontario MST 2W7 416/591-9337 - CICIU Rodriguez ~ ~J T-Recursive Technology Four Refutations of Text Files ~IfaUyouhaveisa hammer, everything looks like a nail." Bamch's Observation '~f all you have is an IBM PC, everything looks like MS-DOS." RodriguezY Reformulation Now that standards fervor is heating up (again), partisans from both sides are waging the war of text files vs. screens in Forth. Although I mostly use screens, I have had occasion to use text files, and I'm not hostile to them. But the arguments being offered to prove their"superiority" are specious, and, I suspect, derive from the illusion that the all the world's programming is on IBM PCs. I'd like to pierce a few of them, and put the discusdon on a more factual plane. B r a d f o r d J. R o d r i g u e z is a f r e e l a n c e softw a r e / n a r d w , a r e d e s i g n e r s ~ e c i a l i z ~ g i n realunae c o n r r o t a p p . n c a u p r u ~. ~ 3 n o n g h i s st..Age a n a s c r e e n crddits is t h e l i g h t i n g c o n t r o l syst e.m u s e d f o r NBC's " S a t u r d a y N i g h t Live". He d i s c o v e r e d ~orr.n a s a s t u d e n t i n 1 9 7 8 , a n d has been trying ever since to reconcile the Forth c o m m u r f l t y a n d t h e c o m p u t e r s c i e n c e academia. 1. "Text files are easier to implement." Maybe so, under MS-DOS or UNIX. But there are many operating systems that don't allow character access to files! (Remember CP/M?) And, ffyou are porting Forth to a single-board or embedded computer, sans operating system, blocks are far easier to implement C h a n g e s t o Forth V e n d o r s c o n t . f r o m p a g e # 2 8 Klaus Schleisiek-Kern DELTA t ACM SlGForth European corGmbH Uh]enh0rster Weg 3 2000 respondent. Hamburg 76 Federal Republic of Germany (+49) (40) 2.29-6441 Deletions: Click S o f t w a r e Has become a subsidiary of 2. "You can use your choice of editor." Another example of"IBM PC chauvinism." At the moment, I have six different computers. Five of them -- the nonPCs --don't offer Terminate-and-Stay-Resident editors. Am I, then, to exit Forth every time I want to change a word? Must I learn six different editors? I much prefer an editor integrated with Forth, interactive, and identical on every machine. (I concede that someone could write a good file editor in Forfl-L..butI haven't seen one yet.) P.O. BOX10162 College Station, TX 77840 4O9/696-,5432 C. J. Street and Assodates P.O. Box 4936 Hayward, CA 94S40 415/'794-1292 Permissions: Knowledge Based Systems, ~"~ Operator of the $oft~mve p r o ' s J o b Registry. This listing may be distributed by any medium at will, provided it is distributed complete with this permission notice and the leading paragraph. Readers are urged to consult the latest issue of the Newsletter for more recent informafiorh

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