On 01/19/2017 11:57 PM, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Another possibility for a natural 80s style progression which I would recommend is Forth. Still a great language and was designed to run easily on hardware from that era. Get a copy of fig-Forth and download a free PDF of "Starting Forth" by Leo Brodie from https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/ and you will begin an incredibly rewarding journey.
Forth is a really mind-bending language, but man, it sure is powerful. I love it.
I found it fascinating to learn of a modern and prominent use of Forth: Sun did boot firmware (Open Firmware / Open Boot) in Forth which was used, among other places, for a period of time by Apple on PowerPC PowerMacs. Wow!
All non-PC Sun systems past the sun4 (as opposed to sun4c/sun4m) kernel architectures use OpenBoot as their firmware. Also, a great many RS/6000 models. OpenBoot was the only systems firmware that was (but is no longer) an IEEE standard. If you want a really nice Forth workstation, pick up a nice SPARCstation-IPC or -IPX and just don't boot it! ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA