drewdiver, 7 months ago

@dekkzz76 @lispi314 looking forward to watching this! I’ve tried wrapping my head around Uxntal and a little Forth but it doesn’t stick.

dekkzz76, 7 months ago

@drewdiver @lispi314

back in the day any coder had to know how his code used the hw in order to get the most bang per buck, forth is an example of that, you could get a version for the sinclairs & the other machines of that era

lispi314, 7 months ago

@dekkzz76 @drewdiver Good compilers were expensive and rare.

However, reliably doing by hand the kinds of optimizations GNAT can do was both a risky and tedious endeavor.

But at the time there was no GNAT, just super expensive commercial compilers, so you did it anyway.

dekkzz76, 7 months ago

@lispi314 @drewdiver

in those days a compiler was a compiler, you didn't quibble.

but i was referring to not so much compiler opts but you knew how efficient certain functions were in terms of cycles & RAM usage so sometimes you had functions that you really avoided

lispi314, 7 months ago

@dekkzz76 @drewdiver The variety of commercial compilers for same languages and performance comparisons doesn't lend me the same impression.

I also think that Forth might abstract enough over a given CPU's assembly that having a clear idea of cycles isn't always trivial unless you implementation specifically comes with an architecture-specific reference manual that documents that.

dekkzz76, 7 months ago

@lispi314 @drewdiver

dunno if were crossing wires here but i'm referring back to the 80s.

lispi314, 7 months ago

@dekkzz76 @drewdiver Yeah, individuals had little choice in the matter anyway due to price, but there were competitors to Turbo Pascal (most significantly more costly though, which is considerable considering it wasn't itself cheap to start with).

dekkzz76, 7 months ago

@lispi314 @drewdiver

there were 2 or 3 british companies that sprung up around the sinclairs there was a good C and forth compiler for both