Re: DragonFly boot2 - moved out of commits thread

[Oliver Fromme <check+kg7ffu00rshag1y7@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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Date: 08 Mar 2009 20:45:28 GMT
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Sorry, this part of the thread is becoming more and more
off-topic ...  is there a dragonfly-chat group this could
be moved to?

Bill Hacker wrote:
 > Oliver Fromme wrote:
 > 
 > *snip*  (evidence that senility is wasted on the aged...)
 > 
 > > so you can't implement it in Forth.
 > 
 > nineteen NINETY 7/8 ???

I'm confused ...  How does that remark relate to the line
that you quoted?

Anyway:  Yes, Mike Smith started to integrate FICL into the
boot loader in 1997/98.  If you don't believe me, you can
easily look it up in the CVS repository.

 > IIRC, Chuck had ported FORTH to over a dozen machine/CPU architectures 
 > before the *1970's* were out.

Sure, but what does that have to do with the boot loader?

 > Sun didn't pick it just 'coz it fit into an affordable chip. They picked 
 > it because it could do everything they needed to have done, and UNLIKE 
 > hand-generated machine-code, was already incredibly portable.

Of course they needed something portable that could be
easily scripted.  Otherwise they wouldn't have bothered
to put _any_ language into OpenBoot.  And among the
choices at that time (1988), Forth was pretty much the
only candidate.

 > D'you have any idea what a Sun workstation cost in relative terms of the 
 > day?

Yes, I do.  I'm not as young as you seem to think,
unfortunately.  :-)

(I'm sorry if I misunderstood parts of your postings.
Sometimes your postings are a bit difficult to read, but
that's probably because I'm not a native English speaker.)

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M.
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