Re: [Amforth-devel] Connection to host

[Tom A. <xy...@sy...>]

On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 09:22:22PM +0000, Andy Kirby wrote:
> What would be really cool would be if you could take an off the shelf 
> Arduino Mega, burn amforth onto it and then use this Forthduino to clone 
> itself to other off the shelf Arduino Mega's
> 
> I guess a new design of Atmel based micro board that was purely amforth 
> would be cool too.

Making amforth work with the Arduino bootloader I think would open up
amforth to a lot more people who may not otherwise want to undertake trying
to play with it.  Forth has a somewhat bad ( un-deserved ) reputation as being 
difficult to deal with as it is.  Having it incompatible with widely
available cheap hardware just adds to that.  The Arduino bootloader is
nothing magical.  Its just a simple software implementation of the STK500
protocol.  

Going with Arduino vs a dedicated amforth board opens up amforth to the
world of arduino "shields" ( I hate that name ) which widens up the hardware
available to quickly throw at a project.

I know there are reasons why its not supported, like Arduino didn't exist
with amforth first came about, I'm only saying it'd be nice.  I wish I had
the skillset to make it happen.  It is worth pointing out that a USB based
Atmel programmer is dirt cheap these days ( $20 or so from AdaFruit I think
).  That makes it fairly easy to turn an Arduino Mega into an AmforthMega.
Easy but not trivial.  Supporting the loader would make it trivial...

-- 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
 - Tom Arnold           -  "...is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?"  
 - Sysabend Caretaker   -    Juanita Shrugs. "What's the difference?"
 ------------------------       -- Neal Stephenson,  Snow Crash