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Don Colburn died on the morning of
September 30, 2009 while undergoing a cardio-cath procedure to diagnose and
repair damage to his heart.
A Memorial Service to celebrate Don's life was
held on Sunday, October 4th at 6pm at the Unity of Fairfax (2854 Hunter Mill
Road, Oakton, VA).
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to
the National Multiple
Sclerosis Society.
Announcement
on comp.lang.forth
Here is what Don wrote about himself and his
contribution to the Forth community on July 2, 2009:
"I wrote a Forth block I/O PerSci floppy interface
for Bill Ragsdale and Bob Selzer's Jolt Computer 6502 Forth project, and in
exchange for writing two articles in Dr. Dobbs on Selzer's 6502 assembly
development system, got a copy to run on my own
Jolt
system."
"I wrote a Forth-77 standard 8080 CP/M Forth
system that was the basis for MSI Data's hand held computers. I used this to
target compile the first 68000 Forth system in 1979. This was followed by 68000
MultiFORTH, distributed by HP on their desktop computer line. In the mid-1980s,
MacForth, a fully featured Forth system for the Macintosh sold over 12,500
copies, and taught a whole new generation of programmers how to use menus,
windows, and mice."
"My company, Creative Solutions, Inc., went on to
develop Macintosh I/O devices. In 1995, I sold Creative Solutions, and retired.
I have had MS for 30 years now, and although confined to a electric wheelchair
(an iBot), I still get around pretty well."
"Forth encourages a scalable, interactive,
incremental, reliable, and testable engineering approach that has, and always
will influence my hardware and software designs. It has enabled me to do some
absolutely amazing things."
"I have recently started up a new company, 3D
Metal Parts, Inc. that repurposes 6-axis industrial robots with a plasma torch
for flexible just-in-time manufacturing of 3D metal parts." |
