HP 71B FORTH/Assembler ROM

[robve]

After teaching 20 years (under)graduates on programming language design and implementation, I find that most introductory texts on FORTH are useless, lacking aim, i.e. not focussing on practical examples to learn the important "FORTH patterns" of programming (see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvrE2ZGe-rs to understand). I've seen the same problems with Lisp and Prolog. It is remarkable how many folks hate these languages, likely because the books, (online) tutorials etc. are useless, not focussing on what matters most.

(09-02-2022 12:09 PM)KeithB Wrote:  There is also "Starting Forth" by Brodie. IT appears to be online now:
https://www.forth.com/starting-forth/

Sorry I have to say this, but Brodie's intro to FORTH is too simplistic and off-putting to folks who already have a rudimentary understanding of programming.

Just get your hands dirty working through FORTH examples. Mistakes can hurt (more) with FORTH. So you will never forget!

PS. just humbly mention, not want to hijack this thread: I (re)wrote the FORTH500 system, with a basic intro to FORTH and programming examples. FORTH500 is FORTH Standard compliant, to which the HP-71B is quite close actually.

- Rob