NOTE THIS MEETING WILL BE ON THE THIRD SATURDAY, NOT THE FOURTH!!! --- SVFIG Meeting, THIRD Saturday, June 19, 2010 --- _______________________________________________ *** MEETING PLACE SAME AS APRIL, DIFFERENT FROM FEBRUARY *** The meeting will be held on the second floor of Building 550 (aka Peterson Building)in room 200. Directions and map links are below. Enter the building from Panama Mall. The door is labeled "Building 550 - Mechanical Engineering Design Group". Walk up the stairs just inside the doorway. Room 200 is on the left at the top of the stairs. (In the event that the building door is locked, there will either be someone on duty to let you in or a cellphone number to call. *** DO NOT ASK STANFORD STUDENTS TO LET YOU IN AND DO NOT ENTER THE BUILDING BEHIND STUDENTS *** The Official SVFIG Announcement Editor's Parking Lot Recommendation is the lot near the intersection of Santa Teresa St and Morris Way. There are other, closer lots but this one is easiest to navigate to. *** WIFI AVAILABILITY *** There is no public Wifi at Stanford. However, if you plan to attend an SVFIG meeting and would like WiFi access, our Stanford host, Dave Jaffe, can set you up with a one-day password. He will automatically do this for regular attendees each month. If you are "irregular", please request WiFi access from Dave at dljaffe@stanford.edu. Your login information will be emailed to you. _______________________________________________ AGENDA For late-breaking updates, check the web site: <<>> 09:50 --- Coffee and a Chat 10:00 --- OSCILLATOR IN FORTH - Bob Nash Bob will describe the direct digital synthesizer (DDS) signal generator (with display) he built using Charley Shattuck's MyForth. An interesting challenge was doing quad multiplication on an 8-bit machine using a modified Russian Peasant algorithm. This was needed to calculate the number for the frequency display (no hardware was needed to measure the frequency). 10:50 VARIATIONS IN THE KEY OF MYFORTH --- Charley Shattuck "I'll try to have something ready to add to Bob's presentation concerning difference between MyForth for 8051 and Forduino (MyForth for AVR). I'm currently having trouble talking to my Arduino board so it may be mostly theoretical." 11:10 --- PRISMFORTH --- Brad Nelson Brad will present his progress toward yet another web-based Forth, drawing on lessons learned from RainbowForth (web/native) and IconForth (web). Both previous systems suffered from over-coupling of Forth and non-Forth code. This time, a minimum of non-Forth code will be used to bootstrap the system: python for a shared block store, javascript to implement a Forth friendly virtual machine and small boot loader. From the point of view of Forth code, web based execution will resemble running on a simple idealize Forth-y CPU. Just to mix things up, this time, conventional Forth syntax will be used. 11:45 --- LUNCH We will walk to The Treehouse by Tresidder Union. Here is a review: <<< http://collegerestaurant.net/default.aspx>>> Here is the menu: <> 12:40 --- HP200A OSCILLATOR After lunch, we'll walk over to the Packard Building to check out the HP200A Oscillator on display, along with other artifacts as time permits. A similar oscillator was featured on "Antiques Roadshow" and it can be seen starting near 30:00 into the program: > http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/video/1416.html 13:00 --- INTRODUCTIONS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, DISCUSSION --- All Assembled What did we see at the Embedded Systems Conference? Some FIG-UK material, available for download: http://www.dougneale.co.uk/Forth.html 13:30 --- VIEW OF A FAIRE --- Dave Jaffe Dave will share his photos from the Maker Faire. 14:00 --- DIGITAL CHART OF THE WORLD --- CH Ting "I got this Digital Chart of the World on the USGS website, code name GTOPO30. It is a huge data set (1.7 Gb) covering the entire earth with 30 arc-second resolution. I am trying to plot maps from this data set. I like to display the globe, rotate the globe to any angle, and expand an area to the limit of the data set, similar to the way I played with the Mandelbrot set." 15:00 --- HOW THE WEB IS CHANGING PROGRAMMING --- John Slater "The special demands and competitive landscape of web programming has created a shift in the way people program. I will cover these changes and invite audience input as to how Forth can respond to this." 16:00 --- ADJOURN A motion to adjourn is always in order, it takes precedence and it is not debated. (Robert's Rules) _______________________________________________ Please note that the times listed above are precise but not accurate. We might go a little long or short on any agenda item or shuffle things on the fly with abandon. If you're desperate to see something at a particular time, please let us know! Remember that there are bugs in any non-trivial SVFIG meeting announcement. _______________________________________________ The schedule above may be reformatted or line-justified but please transmit verbatim or not at all. Any font you like is alright with me. No Newsgroup posts or other media distribution this month please! _______________________________________________ Public Wireless Internet access is NOT anticipated this month at Stanford. Email Dave Jaffe to request a one day guest account if you don't have one from last month. _______________________________________________ Coming to SVFIG: * FORTH DAY in November 2010! * Bring speaker suggestions TO EVERY MEETING! * Mitch Bradley's Forth in C (somebody needs to volunteer) * Blast from the past - a discussion of John James' CRC from his Xmodem implementation as enunciated in "Forth Dimensions". * Engineering TV http://engineeringtv.com/ Fifty engineering topic channels. Four new episodes per week. * BOTBASH 2000 --- Video A cheepie video of a May 2000 robot rumble in Mesa Arizona from these guys: http://www.battlebots.com/ Is it a hollow threat or emergency backup filler material? _______________________________________________ Check the SVFIG web site at http://www.forth.org/svfig/ for last minute changes to this schedule. The most up-to-date meeting information is at http://www.forth.org/svfig/next.html Many thanks to our wonderful Webmaster, Dave Jaffe. Preliminary agenda along with schedule updates and discussion may frequently be found on the SVFIG email list. To subscribe send email to geoperry_at_gmail.com Please let us know if this isn't your preferred email address for the SVFIG-Announce mailing list. Thanks for your patience. Please suggest a speaker or present at a SVFIG meeting. Please do not attempt to reply to svfig-announce@... send instead to forther_at_comcast.net _______________________________________________ NAVIGATIONAL ADVICE Enter the building from Panama Mall. Walk up the stairs just inside the doorway. Room 200 is on the left at the top of the stairs. (In the event that the building door is locked, there will either be someone on duty to let you in or a cellphone number to call.)***DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TRY TO PIGGYBACK IN THE DOOR BEHIND STUDENTS OR ASK STUDENTS TO LET YOU IN*** Google Maps does NOT work very well on the Stanford campus, use this map: http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/map/ Or the Searchable Stanford Campus Map: http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/map/ There is open parking on weekends. Park in any A or C or metered space, no coins needed even if there's a meter there. The Official SVFIG Announcement Editor's Parking Lot recommendation is the lot near the intersection of Santa Teresa St and Morris Way. _______________________________________________