SVFIG
Saturday, March 27th
at
New Location
Stanford University
Building 550 - Room 200

SVFIG will meet at Stanford in Building 550 (aka Peterson Building). Its relationship to Terman Engineering Center (the former meeting place) can be found on these maps - Slide1 or Slide2.

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

Enter the building from Panama Mall. The door is labeled "Building 550 - Mechanical Engineering Design Group". Walk up the stairs just inside the doorway. Room 200 is on the left at the top of the stairs. (In the event that the building door is locked, there will either be someone on duty to let you in or a cellphone number to call.)

Temporary wireless Internet access at the meeting can be arranged by sending an email request to Dave Jaffe (dljaffe -at- stanford.edu).

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

Meeting Agenda for March

09:50 --- Coffee and a Chat

10:15 --- BitBlts and Mandelbrots - CH Ting
Ting will return to the Mandelbrot program to solicit help with its display code. He hopes one of the C experts in attendance can offer advice on the efficient handling and use of bitmaps. To get us started, Ting will talk briefly describe how F# uses the Graphic Display Interface (GDI) and other libraries in Windows and then he'll ask for help on GDI functions such as CreateBitmap and BitBlt.

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

13:00 --- Technology Tryout & Quantum Computing Preview - Jack J. Woehr
We'll try out some netconferencing technology using Skype, and if all goes well, Jack will give us a preview of his upcoming talk on Quantum Computing.

13:30 --- Extended Introductions, Rumors, and Gossip - All Assembled
We'll go around the room and talk about what we're doing at work and otherwise. Some discussion items might include:

What interests us as individuals

What projects we might work on together

Future of Forth and SVFIG

Interesting products we've seen or desire

Interesting websites

Some FIG-UK material, available for download

Area talks, trade shows, and lectures

14:00 --- Walkthrough of February HDLC Code - Sam Falvo
Sam will review the HDLC stack components he has implemented so far, giving us a concrete example in support of his talk last month.

15:00 --- Break

15:20 --- Finding Work in Tough Times - All Assembled
Some of us have a good track record, others have starved to death. We can discuss techniques and tips.

15:50 --- Thumb Drive Linux - Kevin Appert
Kevin purchased a tiny thumb drive (Eagle Tech USB Nano Flash Drive) from usb.brando.com. These devices are great for a bootable rescue toolkit or a Linux Desktop! He'll discuss the easy process for making flash drives bootable or multi-bootable and the various software distributions and tools that can be carried around this way. If you want to get a head start on running Linux from a portable USB device, check out the Pendrivelinux.com website.

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.

Coming to SVFIG:

Task Interface in Forth for eCOS - Part 2 - John E. Harbold
"I'll present the object-oriented interface to the task interface in Forth for eCOS. This will describe the way to create and manage tasks in Forth."

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 this month,
please contact Kevin Appert.

Meeting Notes