SVFIG
Saturday, January 24th

at
Stanford University
Terman Engineering Center
Room 556

Terman Engineering Center can be found on these maps - just search for Terman: Google map or Searchable Stanford Campus Map

There is open parking on weekends. Park in any A or C or metered space.

Take the elevator to the 5th floor. Walk across the foyer and up the ramp just to the left of the glassed-in office. Room 556 is at the top of the ramp - entrance on the left.


If you would like to have meeting announcements e-mailed to you, send the message Subscribe SVFIG Meeting Agenda to: George Perry

Wireless Internet access is anticipated (though not guaranteed) at Stanford, so bring your wi-fi enabled laptop.

Meeting Agenda for January 2009


10:00 --- Coffee and a Chat

10:15 --- eForth in C - CH Ting
"Since I got the uVision 3 microcontroller development system which comes with a good C compiler for many many microcontrollers, I thought that it would be a good idea to write eForth in C, just for portability. I revisited Wil Baden's thisForth and couldn't even understand it. There's got to be a simpler way to do it. I think I can get an interpreter to run this week. The compiler would be much more difficult. I will need help in building the Forth dictionary as a data structure."

11:40 --- Lunch
Lunch on-campus. To avoid the "noon lemming effect", we'll go to lunch a little early.

13:00 --- Introductions, Announcements, Rumors, and Random Access

13:20 --- Interesting Items - Volume 12 - Dave Jaffe
Dave will continue his survey of interesting newly-introduced microcontrollers, I/O peripherals, sensors, products, and gadgets that can provide useful and unique capabilities to Forth embedded systems. If anyone has come across anything that fits this category, pass them along to him for inclusion in his presentation.

14:00 --- Semi-Parallel Multiplier with Log2 N Steps - John E. Harbold
"I figured out a 'semi-parallel' multiplier when I was in the Hilton Sports Book in Las Vegas that would be an adjunct design for Ting's massively parallel matrix multiplier."

15:00 --- Sneak Preview: Music Synthesizer (MusicBox24) on FORTHdrive - Masa Kasahara
Now that the demo program (MusicBox24) is available from IntellaSys, you can experiment with it yourself. Masa has been waiting for it ever since Michael Montvelishky showed it off on Forth Day in 2007. It is not an easy program to understand, but he started working on it. Although he does not know what will be presented in the near future, he will demonstrate how to install VentureForth and run a couple of demo programs, just enough to start your own journey with this marvelous device.

15:30 --- Adjourn

15:30 --- Indoctrinate U DVD
It's a little off-topic, but important! Note that this version of Indoctrinate U contains explicit language. There will be no Forth discussed afterwards, so if you're not interested, you're free to leave. Run time is 89 minutes.

"Speech codes. Censorship. Enforced political conformity. Hostility to diversity of opinion. Sensitivity training. We usually associate such things totalitarian regimes, not with the American universities that nurtured the free speech movement."

Documentary filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney investigates political censorship at colleges and universities in the US.


How you can help SVFIG:

  • Bring your speaker and topic suggestions to every meeting!
  • Your input for and participation in next year's Forth Day is always welcomed.

Coming to SVFIG:

Update on IntellaSys Chips - John Rible
The chips John Rible will be selling to SVFIG are in test now and perhaps he'll be at the meeting to give us an update.

Prototyping with QFP Parts - Kevin Appert
"I saw an article in the September 2008 issue of Circuit Cellar entitled "Prototyping with QFP Parts". If someone tells me "that sounds interesting" I'll break out the article into a few PowerPoint (or the Open Office Impress equivalent) charts and traipse through it. "

Engineering TV
Fifty engineering topic channels. Four new episodes per week.

WAV File and Soundcard I/O Software Using Win32Forth - Andy Korsak
This software was written for amateur radio applications. Andy has suggested that it might be useful to look at his code in advance of his talk. Contributions to this work-in-progress would be welcomed. You can download and view his sound card software on the Win32Forth group (membership required), or here.

Please register your interest for these topics:


If you have anything you'd like to talk about for the January meeting,
please contact Kevin Appert.

Meeting Notes