From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 30139 invoked from network); 2 Jan 2024 20:49:22 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 2 Jan 2024 20:49:22 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B638043DEB; Wed, 3 Jan 2024 06:49:17 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lj1-x22c.google.com (mail-lj1-x22c.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4864:20::22c]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D7A1843DE9 for ; Wed, 3 Jan 2024 06:49:08 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lj1-x22c.google.com with SMTP id 38308e7fff4ca-2cd04078ebeso15125381fa.1 for ; Tue, 02 Jan 2024 12:49:08 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20230601; t=1704228545; x=1704833345; darn=tuhs.org; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date :message-id:reply-to; bh=jsx/p6T3/yp/581ARHjsEDQNq2vJaMXUQ1HyJ5PQsUo=; b=chBrtr9eAMKQTlO125PwxtEwEYxIAKY8MO3Olc4+KM14ABeLIfUXlAwcpPgv91873f 4JuC7YBCSQTytYUc3ULtk3ij9HDv6ccqjnCRvRuF+2KNO6hGnE6yIhkU+XVdWXCDDKc5 Z23oDKlvjV2nNRnxRTGLou1KHS7EApf3DU1QjS842H+YMHls8eWA5w+6Y+v9cTHVtnlA hk8RCdkjllpyfCvruNKjpRO/+rI+AzRSYYj73Ukv/VsXIvANgqAO0uKnTY2nD9DQruS2 RHdqN7xF85NbIQOxDfB+tzafs8wyZE9XvXM9ECZ0JW0BTziyOiGdXJRQ/TQR+RmPCukC 2qSA== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20230601; t=1704228545; x=1704833345; h=content-transfer-encoding:cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc :subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=jsx/p6T3/yp/581ARHjsEDQNq2vJaMXUQ1HyJ5PQsUo=; b=Ppi6N9oQ8wZsqEKVLbYSbUFQYFrFrUvV8qjudRs+MCiTmPZ0THRsbOf8394bUttO1g oxVU+q9AmBKxp9yFRksxsklSSDEobFk6P4cn/7ifJtivznqONE36ZZYE/YR8YLGIE49o OgBMpCQeZylR4RqWHdCo+BL4oPzqZNgCZm6dXl3Csrsy2aJkdBWO2cN8DdSf7A+GGGp2 rnPwA9YMSVL79yo+NAqb1iGu5K77X4EVBLF6Tt8NRfjL5VdUj9YIE/rI4khFJstHPP66 vDJfoXKiqMqrrYnqrI8uww8cRJROcofS/WAhp9V5ibsQqE6J+YACe98tf5m17XLEDblK M9LQ== X-Gm-Message-State: AOJu0YxYlUI2l8NTQzmxMwDT9ASYQIonCCAlQDxM9PCM1YUunlr6tQ3H CRr9omvyOdVkLOMfsRn1IJzRSjLnGjCcXkaml+Ib5RmB2GA= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AGHT+IGPICtrkNZXJxoUUQNv2Sct/3ROKgH+ORWBmwEjlk3Is85Res4+7YjelMj/yGlhJGeo5xvcdPBX1EDzkdMD3k4= X-Received: by 2002:a2e:3304:0:b0:2cc:d60a:8ed1 with SMTP id d4-20020a2e3304000000b002ccd60a8ed1mr13536ljc.21.1704228545212; Tue, 02 Jan 2024 12:49:05 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <6470c59f-a1e5-418f-803d-76bcd761f530@tnetconsulting.net> <20231231224649.h45pogxycgkgs673@illithid> <20231231230615.GE19322@mcvoy.com> In-Reply-To: <20231231230615.GE19322@mcvoy.com> From: Dan Cross Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2024 15:48:28 -0500 Message-ID: To: Larry McVoy Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-ID-Hash: KCBTVKUNENB5S5G7OTLFUEXDXXCZSB3R X-Message-ID-Hash: KCBTVKUNENB5S5G7OTLFUEXDXXCZSB3R X-MailFrom: crossd@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: The Unix Heritage Society X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Question about BSD disklabel history List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Sun, Dec 31, 2023 at 6:25=E2=80=AFPM Larry McVoy wrote: >[snip] > OpenFirmware is Mitch Bradley's baby. I believe it ran on 68k Suns, > there was some sort of boot prom there. I mostly used it on SPARC. > It was pretty powerful but my personal feeling is the choice of > Forth didn't help. Yeah, I get it, Forth is like some weird lisp > and the lisp people love lisp. What the lisp people don't get is > there are a lot more people who don't love lisp than do love lisp. > And trying to get everyone to love lisp isn't gonna happen. > > That said, what else could Mitch have used at the time? Tcl? > Please, another weird lisp. Perl? Not really something that > wants to talk to the bare metal. > > It's a serious question, is there anything that Mitch could have > used that would have had wider appeal? The thing about FORTH isn't that it's Lisp-like (as Alec mentioned), though its supporters do often exhibit a fervor reminiscent of Lispers. Rather, I think FORTH shows up in places like this because it's possible to write _incredibly_ lean threaded-code interpreters for it that can run in really primitive environments, so you can shove a really small interpreter in a ROM and keep your big CPU in reset while you run it out of a tiny SRAM on an 8-bit microcontroller or something until you've got enough of an environment going to train DRAM and transfer over to the real thing. E.g., something like: https://pygmy.utoh.org/3ins4th.html What could you have done differently? Meh; I don't really know, but see bel= ow. > And I agree whole heartedly with the EFI crap being a giant step > backwards. Ironically, the UEFI people have done something _similar_ to OF in the form of AML (ACPI Machine Language), which is a byte-code serialization ASL (ACPI Source Language); presumably that's system independent. The idea of a p-code representation is about where the similarity ends, though: AML exposes a mechanism to talk to the UEFI OS for a whole slew of stuff, which is rather unlike what OF did (though I again have a vague memory that on SPARCstations some devices went through the PROM monitor; the text console, for example, and maybe the keyboard? It's been too long now to properly remember). Anyway, an alternative to FORTH might have been a well-defined p-code and a little VM in ROM to drive it. Then one could compile to that using whatever language one liked (and was willing to write a compiler for!). Perhaps the feeling is that that is what FORTH was; for that I guess I don't see any reason one couldn't transpile to FORTH from some other language. - Dan C.