[Discuss] Fotoxx (and Forth) at BLU

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

I agree Rich. I explored Forth back in the late 70s early 80s. Raytheon
Data System was doing a bid for one of the government agencies, and
their new 3270 emulator platform needed a high level language to
qualify. Since I had some experience with Forth on my Apple II, I was
asked to explore this, and I found a couple of resources including Dick
Miller. We ended up hiring Forth Inc, and they did a wonderful job. We
were one of the finalists, but one company underbid everyone (with a
vaporware system). One of the things that impressed us was that the
FORTH code could do IBM bisync and SNA faster than the existing emulator
code mostly written in assembler.

I was quite interested in Fotoxx. BTW: I installed it from the Fedora
repo, and it was an older release (10.11-1-8-fc15-x86_64). It contained
more than just Fotoxx itself, hence my question about printoxx which got
installed. What really impressed me was the ease of use. I've always had
trouble with this type of software before.

On 10/20/2011 12:16 PM, Rich Braun wrote:
> Indeed, that was an intriguing trip down memory lane!  I once learned Forth
> and wondered what happened to it--the explanation about how much work it would
> have been to keep on top of device drivers as the PC industry exploded was
> very interesting.  (I happened to be sitting next to Shankar, who works for an
> employer coping with that same issue:  graphics drivers for Linux have never
> been quite at the forefront, and even with the massive resources of Ubuntu,
> drivers remain a bugaboo).
>
> In the battle of the distros, I note one area where OpenSUSE is out in front
> of Ubuntu:  Dick Miller suggested getting Fotoxx from the developer's site
> rather than the Ubuntu package repo.  Indeed, there is a moldy version on the
> Natty/Universe repo (10.7 vintage July 2010).  If you install from the
> OpenSUSE Build Service, you'll find version 11.10--right at the bleeding edge
> (well, almost--Dick was showing us a 11.11 preview version last night).  Over
> the past year, I've noticed that OpenSUSE's build/test distribution site has
> dramatically improved.
>
> Usually when a presenter goes (well) past the scheduled time, I lose my
> interest.  Not so with Dick's talk last night!  Even though we had no time for
> audience Q&A, this was one of the most worthwhile meetings.  Passion for the
> open-source dev process really came through: we got to see one side of the
> one-on-one dialog between user & developer (a retiree now living in Germany). 
> Thanks again.


-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id:3BC1EB90 
PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66  C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90