"Elizabeth D Rather"
forth.com> wrote in message
news:a9SdnW6gnNpz61zVnZ2dnUVZ_q_inZ2d@supernews.com...> Robert Miller wrote:
>> For a few months now, I have been watching a Yahoo group for the TI
>> MSP430 family. Apparently there is nobody in that group using Forth!
>> Considering its advantages in an embedded systems environment, I find
>> that rather appalling.
>>
>> While I doubt either Forth Inc. or MPE have particularly large
>> advertising budgets, they are the players who should be servicing the
>> embedded systems market. Unfortunately, it seems that they are up
>> against a mindset that there is only C and assembler.
>>
>> While most of the questions to the Yahoo group could reasonably be
>> answered by RTFM, it is apparent that a lot of the posters have English
>> as a second language. Given the nature of the manuals, for them the
>> manuals are not an easy read and RTFM isn't an appropriate answer. The
>> remaining questions seem to relate either to difficulties in getting
>> their chosen C compiler to work for them or being unable to debug their
>> latest chunk of C code. It should be possible to attract the later group
>> to Forth if only for the interactive aspect. But the whole mindset seems
>> to be 'there is only C and assembler'. How does one get their attention
>> for long enough to consider Forth?
>
> FORTH, Inc. has an excellent SwiftX for the MSP430, and it's been one of
> our better sellers. Inasmuch as many MSP430 users are looking for
> low-power solutions, SwiftX has a power-saving feature that automatically
> goes to low-power mode when the chip is idle, waking up on an interrupt.
> This requires minimal attention from the application programmer (one
> instruction added to the interrupt routine), and results in duty cycles of
> only a few microseconds.
>
I am a satisfied user of SwiftX. In the MSP430 User's Group on Yahoo, I see
a lot of frustrated users of C. This should translate to a marketing
opportunity, for Forth Inc. and MPE.
> For a number of years, we had a special section in TI's introductory CD
> about SwiftX, with a link to download a free evaluation version. I don't
> know if it's still on that CD or not.
>
After an absence of over 25 years, I rediscovered Forth Inc. through a link
on the TI website.
>> In the course of developing an analog gauge for an OLED display, I
>> implemented a scale-able clock as a test vehicle - it uses most of the
>> same words. Although I am a long long way from being an authority on
>> Forth, I had thought to try and write an article based on my development
>> for submission to a hobby type publication, but just my introduction
>> almost exceeds their preferred submission length. (The article would
>> probably be too short for a book - that nobody would buy anyway).
>> Regardless, I am onsidering continuing with documenting my development of
>> the clock and posting it to the Yahoo groups files in the hope that
>> someone might read it and at least take a look at Forth. Would I be
>> wasting my time?
>
> There are a lot of on-line publications that like such things. Or, you
> can just post it somewhere that you have access to and include a link in
> messages from time to time. I'd be interested in seeing it.
>
> Cheers,
> Elizabeth
>
> --
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