🚀 go-pugleaf

#R:bunker:-32100:umn-cs:14200007:000:1546
umn-cs!smith    Feb  1 09:46:00 1984

  I favor having an assembler with Forth because I occasionally need an
assembler.  Forth is the only system I know of that allows me to deal
with assembler in a reasonable fashion.  An assembler in Forth lets you:

1. Work with very small pieces of machine code.  It's almost impossible
   to write small assembler programs in any other environment (i.e. 2
   or 3 instructions).  You can do all of your I/O on the stack.

2. Experiment with the machine's instruction set.  A fine way to learn.

3. Diagnose hardware problems.  This isn't as useful on our Berkeley Unix
   since kumem is broken and Berkeley doesn't handle bus errors nicely.
   BUT... there's been many a time I've wanted/needed to tweak a device
   and there's no better device tweaking language than Forth.

4. Build REAL TIME stuff.  I'm speaking to you via a 1200bps modem link
   handled by Forth running on a Z80.  Most of the modem handling code
   is in hi level Forth, of course, but most of the words called by the
   innermost loop are in Forth assembler.  High level Forth just didn't
   have the speed.

  The main use I see for Forth on Unix is for hacking around with small
algorithms (i.e. a toy).  Sure, it provides a nice variable radix
calculator, but if I want it to be something more than a toy I need
an assembler.

Rick.

p.s. Arguments that "systems administrators don't want you to execute
     assembly code" are bogus.  If assembly code is a security breach,
     then you can certainly breach security with most other high level
     languages, too.