From: Mike B. <mi...@mj...> - 2010-03-05 15:58:59
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On Thu, 4 Mar 2010 13:55:36 -0800, Tom Arnold <xy...@sy...> wrote: > 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... I'm working with a breadboarding tile for an ATMega88 in the 32MLF package, including crystal, decoupling, reset, and 6-pin SPI connector - not very different from some of the simpler Arduinos. I've glued it to the top of an IDC connector to plug into the board that it is to control. An off-the-shelf version of this which included an RS232 interface and pre-loaded with amforth would have been irresistible. (ok, make it the 16k or 32k flash version!) In comparison, I'm wondering how popular the various "BASIC Stamp" - type of boards might be, as a guide to the prospects for a Forth-based board. Forth is, after all, so much more amenable than BASIC (at least I think so - but then, I've been a Forth convert since the 70s.) Mike Beach |