Who's Who

Michael A. Losh - Wrote jeForth and WebForth.
Frank Sergeant - Small page with links, including to his Forth page with selected fine links, downloads Pygmy Forth.
Olivier Singla - Wrote several Forths (froth, dos-wfroth, works and lives in Raleigh, NC
Samuel Tardieu - Wrote PicForth, a free-software Forth compiler for the Microchip PIC microcontrollers.
Reuben Thomas - Downloads. Implementations: aForth, Machine Forth for ARM, TpForth, Joy Forthlike language; Beetle virtual machine designed to run Forth; much more. All programs GPL, unless otherwise stated.
Len Zettel - Len's Forth Page, Forth: discrete event simulation, large integer arithmetic, statistics routines, user stacks, 'Unprofessional silliness'; small but useful set of other links, includes books. Also some personal views, family information.
Tom Zimmer- An Interview with Tom Zimmer: Forth System Developer
William B. Zimmerly - Wrote zForth 32-bit Forth, zForth for Linux, zHTTP Internet Webserver written in zForth; involved in many other impressive Forth efforts.

Updated urls

M. Edward Borasky

Marcel Hendrix

Olivier Singla

Leo Wong

Bad urls

Chris Heilman - Pocket Forth

Michael Mangelsdorf

Mark Smiley

Scott A. Woods

Len Zettel

photo of Ray Adams

Raymond K. Adams - 06/11/2010: I thought that I should tell you a little about why I am interested in re-practicing Forth after being away from it for - hmm let's see, almost 30 years.; About 33 years ago, I was attempting to set up a laboratory to aid the teaching of the Electrical Engineering Circuits course. I decided that the equipment we were using to teach Electrical Engineering Circuits was woefully inadequate. We were using memory 'scopes to let the students visualize how the voltages and currents behave in simple circuits containing resistors, capacitors and inductors. It seemed to me that by the time the students got the 'scopes adjusted to observe an electrical transient, the difficulty of adjustment of the 'scopes obliterated the lessons attempted to be taught. In other words, it was so hard to adjust the 'scopes, that the observation of the transient had fallen into oblivion. So, I embarked upon the invention of a Virtual Scope or V'Scope.; My invention took the form of a small Mac (speaking Forth), and a satellite box that had a Forth based µP in it that used an A/D convertor (built-in) to sample up to 4 channels of analog signal. The invention is documented in the IEEE paper:; The virtual scope: an impedance match to the beginning ECE student; The uP in the remote box took the signals and stored them digitally. After the signal transient was recorded, the uP sent the signals to the Mac, where the (digitized) four signals of the transient were displayed on the screen, where they could then be printed. Up to 2048 individual samples of the 4 digitized signals were displayed. The uP spoke a version of Forth (I programmed it). I also programmed the Mac in Mach 2, which has unfortunately fallen into oblivion since that OS (OS7 I think, although it may have been even before any Mac OSs) has long since been in disuse.; My hope now, is to use a version of Forth to communicate with the serial ports of the Mac and thus connect to the Virtual Scopes (I liberated several of them [they were in storage] by virtue of a financial donation to the ECE department I worked in.) So you see my immediate interest in re-learning Forth. Any aids you can provide toward my using Forth to communicate with the Mac's serial ports will be appreciated.

rayadams -at- utk.edu

Individuals who responded at Forth Day 2009

photo of John Slater

John Slater - 11/23/2009: I did 20+ years of non-linear finite element work, and was forced to live in the Fortran ghetto. I am now a bit of a JavaScript expert and really enjoy programming.; As a past robotics activity, I worked with member Ingolf Sander on implementing Lowe's vision algorithm.; I currently am teamed up with David Wyland. We are putting Forth on a small CPU and want to use a web page to program and control a robot.; HomeBrew Robotics Club (HBRC) - Forth on Robots Wiki

johngslater -at- gmail.com

photo of Jay McKnight

Jay McKnight - 11/23/2009: Magnetic Reference Laboratory (MRL); I use Forth at work and at home (I'm now retired); Projects: At MRL, used Forth in magnetic recording system design calculations, and in designing and programming the signal generation system and the magnetic tape recorder system that we use to make "Magnetic Reference Laboratory" Calibration Tapes. This is based on Studer A-80 tape transports, with home-built, Forth controlled, electronics and signal and announcement generator and plotter.; A Forth program for calculating gap loss and compensation for it in a magnetic recorder can be downloaded here, and the source code is here.; RPN: Started with HP-9100A "calculator" in 1969, then an HP-35 in 1972, etc.

Forth Versions: Started in around 1980 with Micromotion Forth on an Apple2; then Tom Zimmer's Forth for the Commodore 64, where I learned about interfacing to a parallel port; then Zimmer's F-PC on an IBM PC and clones, which I still use.

Help I might need: Don't need any help with Forth now. Might be able to help a beginner with Forth -- my "expertise" is a bit rusty.

jay.mck -at- comcast.net
408/252-7396

photo of Tim Duncan

Timothy W. Duncan - 10/27/2009: How I got started with Forth: I started programming Forth with the Hierarchical Music Specification Language (HMSL), a Forth project at Mills College during the 80's and early 90's. That was originally based on the Mach 2 Forth, from the Palo Alto Shipping Company. I was living in a remote area in Mississippi (scene of my first full-time college teaching job). Mountain View (as in Mountain View Press) seemed like the hub of technological innovation.; Where I use Forth: I don't use Forth as much as I did in the past, but I have used it on a number of music composition projects.; Past projects: One past project was a Forth program that generates all possible octave-repeating scales using numerical sieves. Other Forth projects generate musical content based on various algorithms, such as a 1/F noise generator.; Current projects: n/a; Future projects: A project that I would still like to implement is an interface for accessing audio and graphics in Forth that is consistent across Mac, Linux, and Windows.; Versions of Forth: Mach 2 Forth, HMSL, Win32Forth, Swift Forth evaluation edition.; Why I like Forth: Expressing concepts is very direct. Feedback is immediate. Language is intriguing.; Willingness to share: I am still interested in audio subsystem access within Forth.; tduncan -at- cogswell -dot- edu

Individuals who responded at Forth Day 2008

photo of Sam Falvo from Forth Day 2008

Samuel A. Falvo II - 11/25/2008: Where I use Forth: Mostly for exploratory or research programming, with production code written in more conventional languages.; Past projects: A text preprocessor written in GForth, of which a video of its evolution may be downloaded (preferably!) using BitTorrent or directly from my website via the blog. An assembler for the 65816 processor.; Future projects: A truly personal, home computer built around Forth and the philosophies of Chuck Moore, again mostly as a research vehicle to see to what extent if or how things could be different in the computer industry.; Versions of Forth: GForth, SwiftForth for Linux, PygmyForth for DOS, FTS/Forth (my own grossly incomplete and unfinished Forth) for the 32-bit x86 and 65816 CPU environments.; Help I might need: Most importantly, I need help to see the project through. I am notoriously bad at starting projects and never finishing them. It'd be nice to have some help in actually completing something for a change.; Willingness to share: All of my public work, unless otherwise documented, remains under the BSD license. I am more than willing to share and even to support, provided support loads prove reasonable. I know I'm not the best communicator.; kc5tja -at- arrl.net

Dudley Ackermaan - 11/15/2008: "I started Forth because of Cap'n Crunch (John Drapper) using Captain Crunch Forth for the Apple II. I began the San Francisco Apple Core Forth User's Group in 1980. We still meet twice a month."; rdacker -at- pacbell.net

Individuals who responded to "Where are they now?"

Rick Miley - 03/28/2009: Author of Mach1 Forth and Mach2 Forth by Palo Alto Shipping Company; I could quickly develop Macintosh videos boards using Mach2/Forth. The company was making products at a rate of one a week. We could debug hardware and make scope triggers 100 times faster than C or assembly.; I also used Mach2/Forth to send my first a fax. It was a picture of a fish. It got us funded. The fax specifications in 1988 were CCITT gibberish. They were so cryptic I had to pound on a horrible Rockwell chip for six months. I must have called my fax machine 1000 times. We had no test equipment.; The fax company was Global Village which ultimately went public in 1994 with a market cap of $200M.

photo of Dave Jaffe from Forth Day 2008

Dave Jaffe - 07/23/2008

My experiences with Forth

Dan Pliskin from Atari introduced me to Forth in the early 1980s. While working at the VA in Palo Alto, I briefly used 8080 PolyForth to program a powered wheelchair with the help of Kim Harris. Although PolyForth did not work out in the hardware environment I was using, I did find a version of Forth called Jib Ray Forth that was one of the first tethered Forths for 8080-class microprocessors. The source code for it was available and I was able to get it running on an Intel 8080 development processor board. Subsequently, I configured it for use on a Z-80 STD-bus board that controlled the powered wheelchair. I adapted that version of Forth for 8085, NSC-800, and Z-80 processors under CP/M. An 8086 version running under MS-DOS was also developed by an east-bay colleague.

I also helped support Forth's use for many years in the Smart Products Mechanical Engineering class at Stanford University. Eventually C became the language of choice for the class, displacing Forth.

At the VA, I used Forth for control of a robotic hand and for a project that monitored balance of elderly patients.

Most recently, I employed Forth in a program to validate, count, and sort zipcode and country data from a shopper's survey.

I continue to use Forth for embedded applications.

I enjoy using Forth because I can make it work the way I desire. I believe it fosters a superior programming development and debugging paradigm, especially in embedded systems.

photo of Martin Tracy

Martin Tracy - 05/22/2008: Martin is now Programmer Writer Lead, Visual Studio - Extensibility Team, at Microsoft; Webpage at Microsoft; martintr -at- microsoft.com; "As a senior programmer at Forth, Inc., I wrote over twenty compilers for DSP and RISC chips, and my own protected mode operating system. Somewhere along the line, I also wrote a book for Prentice-Hall, and a column for Dr. Dobb's."

photo of Leo Brodie

Leo Brodie - 12/31/2007: Author of Starting Forth and Thinking Forth; leobro -at- comcast net; "I still have the extracurricular hobby business: Punch and Brodie Puppet Productions."; "I'm working as Director of Technical Services for NetSpeed Leadership in Seattle, developing Fast Tracks."; ' NetSpeed Fast Tracks is a searchable database of practical resources that help you and your team manage your day-to-day workplace challenges and your career, and become more successful at work.'; Homepage

Kim Harris - 11/19/2007: kim_harris - at- novxiii.com; "I'm retired from HP and spend time volunteering for non-profits, travel, and enjoying life. I'd love to connect with Forth folks, current or former. Forth has a fond place in my memory."

photo of John K. Stevenson

John K. Stevenson - Inventor - Updated 07/03/2009: js - at - nomadic.com; Resume

Past member of F83 and ANS Forth Standards Team
Buried too many small companies
Wrote a Forth Source generating Test Language, Xray control system
Did Systems Architecture for an Uplink Controller, a CAD package, and an SS7 Service Node
Systems Analyst for that unnamed Airport
Now Systems Engineering, DO-178B planning Avionics. (What holds Airplanes up? Standards.)

Mitch Bradley - 07/09/2007: wmb_at_firmworks.com; "I'm currently working on the One Laptop Per Child project. The XO laptop boots with Open Firmware. Forth has been instrumental in debugging the various bits of innovative hardware on the laptop."

Ned Conklin - former Forth Inc. employee who worked on the Remote Manipulator System Simulator for the Goddard Space Flight Center and president of the KH6BB amateur radio club in Hawaii on the battleship Missouri: Ned is now retired in Hawaii, doing occasional consulting jobs for Forth Inc.; Edward K. (Ned) Conklin; KH7JJ, ex-K1HMU; 2969 Kalakaua Ave., #1004; Honolulu, HI 96815; 808/923-6133

Charles Curley - Author of Forth Dimension articles and one of the writers of Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours: Charles Curley is the chairman and sole member of his "Forth Non-Standards Team" described in the Forth Dimensionsreview article Forth: The New Model in May/June 1993 - (V15N1). He's still a Forth Practitioner after all these years. For his particulars, go to his website. If you want good writing or good programming, he can be reached at charlescurley_at_charlescurley.com. 07/09/2007

Marlin Ouverson - Editor of Forth Dimensions: marlin@neverslow.com; Marlin provides corporate services as a custom web site designer and producer, and as an experienced editor and publication designer through his company, External Design.; External Design Homepage

Glenn S. Tenney - Forth Standard Team member and co-author of MVP-Forth User's Manual: Amiga: tenney@think.org; Organizer and Chair of the THINK Conference (formerly Hacker's Conference); PO Box 6983; San Mateo, CA 94403; 650/574-3420; 650/574-0546 fax; THINK Conference Homepage

Howard Pearlmutter - 02/06/2004: hxp4th20050909 --at-- xmlephant --dot-- org; "My Forth background has been mighty handy in my current incarnation - guruing about Extensible Languages, Virtual Machines, Enterprise Architectures, Management Strategy, etc. That's on the public seminar and private consulting side; on the personal coding and system administration side, I've been doing a lot with XML, J2EE, J2ME, Linux, SVG, XSL, etc."; "As a consulting mercenary and general hitech nomad, I've logged 59 months overseas during the past 7 years, mostly Australia, Singapore, Israel, and England. Currently on US east coast, without current plans to be out west anytime soon, but would love to rendevous with you all when I do eventually make it back to California. Until then, please convey my best wishes to everyone in the Forth Family."; Executive Summary

George Nicol - proprietor of Silicon Composers, Inc.: george -at- inscenes.com; "These days I'm mostly making short films and writing/recording music in Buenos Aires. I recently finished a new film: Hooked on You. I'm also planning to release a music CD this year." 01/23/2004; InScences Homepage

Bill Ragsdale - one of FIG's founders: fig -at- billragsdale.cc; Website; "After retiring from Dorado Systems (a 100% Forth shop), I now conduct statistically based investment research and publish a financial advisory letter (Good Fortune). I am now living in Woodland, CA, phone 530/661-0413." 02/04/2004; Forbes Interview - 07/12/2002; An article Bill wrote about FIG-Forth on the JOLT computer.; 11/15/2008 - "I was the first Forth Interest Group President and father of only and also."

Tom Zimmer - Primary author of FPC, Win32Forth, and TCOM: win32forth -at- mac.com; "I have been with Thermo (Thermo Electron in Austin, TX) now for over 10 years, moving from Forth programmer, to C/C++, to Java, and currently C#. I haven't written any Forth in over 5 years, which is sad but true. The Forth language has served me well over the years, and it will always have a special place in my heart. Always remember: You don't write "FOR" an operating system in Forth, you "ARE" the operating system in Forth. FORTH FOREVER!!" (07/06/2007); Homepage

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