SVFIG
Saturday, January 23rd
at
Stanford University
Terman Engineering Center
Room 556

Meeting Agenda for January

09:50 --- Coffee and a Chat

10:00 --- Livescribe Pulse Smartpen Computer - CH Ting
"The Pulse was the most impressive product I found at the last Maker Faire. It replaces a CRT with paper, and a pen for mouse/keyboard. It also records speech and can recognize both spoken words and written words. The one I bought is still unopened, but I plan to play with it to give a reasonable demonstration at the meeting."

Speculations on the Genetic Code - CH Ting
"We know that our chromosomes contain all the code necessary for life, from birth to death. We know DNA contains code to make proteins which participate and direct many of the activities in the cells and in the body. We know only about 3% of DNA contains information to make proteins. Other DNA is called junk DNA."

"From a Forth perspective, we can assume that the proteins producing DNA are primitive instructions in the chromosomes, and the junk DNA's are likely to contain high level instructions. In a major Forth application, 3% primitive instructions are a reasonable proportion. It may be possible to analyze junk DNA to find out how the high level instructions are encoded in the chromosomes. We can speculate about this and discuss possible ways of doing it."

11:48 --- Lunch
We will walk to The Treehouse by Tresidder Union. Here is the menu.

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

13:30 --- SVFIG Treasurer's Report - John Rible

13:50 --- Break

14:00 --- Quantum Computing Preview - Jack J. Woehr
We'll try out some netconferencing technology and if all goes well, Jack will give us a preview of his upcoming talk on Quantum Computing.

14:10 --- FPGA 1802 CamelForth and/or Makerbot - Eric Smith
Eric has implemented an 1802 on an FPGA and has some success using CamelForth on it. He has also built a MakerBot. He'll talk about one or the other or both efforts.

15:00 --- Task Interface in Forth for eCOS - John E. Harbold
"I'm going to present a preliminary design for eCOS tasks under Gforth. I'll compare the tasking C calls with the corresponding proposed Forth words. I would like to get input from everybody at the meeting for this design."

16:00 --- Adjourn

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.

Possible topics for future meetings:

John James wrote FIG-Forth for the PDP-11 and The FIG Tree which evolved 
into the generic Menu Tree bulletin board system. John wrote a number of articles
in Forth Dimensions including an implementation of XModem with an interesting CRC.
The code should be online in the Forth Dimensions archive.

"XMODEM Tutorial"  John S. James
Volume 8, Issue 2, Page 9

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=================

Coming to SVFIG:

Engineering TV
Fifty engineering topic channels, four new episodes per week.

Botbash 2000 Video
A cheapie video of a May 2000 robot rumble in Mesa, AZ.

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.

Solicitations for presentations and assistance:

Mitch Bradley's Forth in C
A volunteer is needed to present and demonstrate this software.

PowerMops Forth for the Mac - Kevin Appert
Kevin Appert: "Mops is an open-source, full-featured, object-oriented stand-alone programming language for Mac OS X descended from the much-beloved NEON. I now have a working installation and when I know enough to do a good demo, I’ll be doing a talk. I’d be grateful for any help and advice from anyone familiar with PowerMOPS.”

PowerMops on SourceForge

Carbon Mac Forth - Kevin Appert
Kevin Appert: "Mac Forth was the first programming language used on the bench to bring up the Mac and the first programming language with Mac API available to the public. I have substantial interest in the current version, Carbon Mac Forth and I’m hoping to do what I can to promote it. I'm unable to contact Ward McFarland, the Carbon MacForth guy. If anybody knows a good way to buy a copy, please fill me in! His email appears full and he doesn't reply. The phone number is out of service, but the website is still up. I’m hoping that if Carbon Mac Forth is now an orphan, we can make all the source and executable available on our website.

Please indicate your interest for these topics:

• Viewing of Analog by Design shows hosted by Bob Pease - list of shows
• Review and discussion of recent postings on news:comp.lang.forth
• Review and discussion of interesting Forth projects and many files at the Yahoo Win32Forth Group

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