PSoC FORTH

- C
- chris burns
  
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posted
20 years ago

Sun, Jun 29, 2003 10:36 PM

Hi All.

I need some advice. I've just put the finishing touches on a project I've been working on for the last year or so: a FORTH for Cypress' PSoC chip.

So far as I can tell I've killed all the major bugs and it works pretty well. I'd like to put it up on a web site and get some feedback, but here is my dilema: I think this could be a pretty cool tool for robotics and I don't know if I want to give it away.

Some of you guys have made little businesses out of your ideas. How do you test the waters without giving it all away?

- C
- chris burns
  
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posted
20 years ago

Mon, Jun 30, 2003 1:37 AM

Thanks for the frank advice. I kind of figured that you have to grab'em and go.

I didn't know you were the New Micros guy. MAX FORTH was a major inspiration for this project, a one chip micro that can be programmed in FORTH.

- R
- Randy M. Dumse
  
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posted
20 years ago

Mon, Jun 30, 2003 2:31 AM

Yep. Speaking very frankly, then, I don't think I could do the same thing today. Obviously, or I'd be trying.

The closest thing to the HC11 as it was in the days I did the Max-FORTH to come along (other than the 68333, which we geared up for, and Motorola cancelled) is the DSP56F80x series. No one has really made a "perfect" chip, though, as far as I know. where I could ROM the kernel and still have programmable space for user code. (I don't know the PSoC, though.)

The market has changed so much, I don't think Forth by itself has enough pull to make a market base to keep you fed if this was your only product. In my opinion too many "free" Forths with out financial commitment or backing poisoned the market place for an otherwise incredibly useful language.

That's why I developed IsoMax(TM). It has Forth underneath, but a much more real time inspired "overstructure". It contains the essence of what I've learned to be the critical concepts in real time programming for the past 25 years.

Many great financial successes have been made by starting with Forth and moving ahead into another language from there, Adobe Postscript being perhaps the most notable. On the other hand, many small Forth based startups have come and gone.

A possible strategy for you might be to align with one of the existing significant Forth vendors and offer your Forth for sale through them. That would be Forth Inc., MPE, and myself, probably. I'm not a good candidate, because I would prefer to offer an IsoMax(TM) than a straight Forth now.