HP 71B FORTH/Assembler ROM

[rprosperi]

Religious debates about language preferences and skills will always ensue in threads like this, and like true religious debates, everyone is of course right. And wrong. And well, will continue to pray in the same places.

Regarding Forth on the 71B, as you are exploring and learning it, you will encounter Memory Lost far more often than when attempting similar things in BASIC, so one modern approach which makes this a lot less painful is to use Christoph Giesselink's EMU71/Win (https://hp.giesselink.com/emu71.htm) which lets you save your state just before trying something new, and then when seeing the Memory Lost, you simply reload your state file and 10 seconds later, you're back where you were just before that fateful step.

Before long you learn to check it twice and fairly soon, are a lot more careful. It's really only noticeable because 71B BASIC is soo protective, and you have to work pretty hard to hurt yourself, and so become a tad spoiled and relatively careless when using it.

But everyone should try Forth, and it's really easy on a 71B; it will be a very new experience for most people, even seasoned programmers. Most 71 users love it.