Re: [Amforth-devel] Connection to host

[Andy K. <an...@ak...>]

Erich

I have read the docs explaining the issues with the bootloader and 
arduino and fully agree. You are somewhat caught by how the architecture 
of the AVR's was designed. I don't see it as being a limitation of 
either amforth or Arduino. They are quite different animals. Trying to 
make one like the other could be a mistake.

A minimalist AVR stamp sounds like a good idea. This though has been 
done and they are available to buy off the shelf as mass produced 
commodity hardware. ie quite inexpensive.

In the interim, all (an easy statement to make) that amforth appears to 
lack for it to be able to give newbies a quick way in is a binary image 
(no compiling, or tool-chain necessary) for a very select number of off 
the shelf micro boards, and a detailed how-to do ICSP using avrdude and 
ultimately from a board running amforth (board to identical board clone 
using a forth programming routine).

I fully agree that anyone capable of contributing to the current project 
  would have the necessary skills already. What about the next 
generation of would be forth hackers that have yet to discover that they 
are up for it though ??

I think that although awesome the amforth project is at the same cross 
roads as many forths before it. It needs something more (perhaps only a 
little thing or two) to make it sufficiently accessible to non forth 
users who are interested. Feed the interest and this new blood will take 
itself to the next screen/level.

Maybe they will by pass toolchain and C development altogether and 
settle into entirely native forth development. This is one of forths 
more appealing aspects.

I think there is an opening for new forthies to contribute forth code 
towards a growing library that resides upon the amforth foundations. If 
we can get them there.........





Erich Waelde wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> Tom Arnold 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 agree very much with this comment. I'm trying to set up a class to teach
> microcontroller programming using amforth on an atmega32 or similar. We had
> long and somewhat heated discussions about the hardware to use. We are
> still very much undecided.
> 
> Making amforth work with the arduino boot loader requires some work on the
> arduino bootloader, as far as I have understood this. It's not impossible. It
> just needs to be done. The key point is that the workings of i! and i@ must
> reside in the protected flash (boot loader area). Or something along
> these lines.
> 
> Cheers,
> Erich
> 
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