H E N C E F O R T H   in   C

                        Version: 1    Release: 2

                    Copyright (c) 1990 Missing Link
                          All rights reserved

                    

           For technical/sales information contact:

                     Missing Link
                     975 East Ave. STE 112
                     Chico, CA 95926
                     (916) 343-8129    Voice
                     (916) 891-0114    FAX
                     (916) 342-4414    Modem (3-2400,N,8,1)

This file will introduce you to HenceFORTH in C and it's installation but first let me introduce you to MISSING LINK, our products and services.

Here at MISSING LINK, our emphasis is on developing and applying advanced technologies towards the goal of a healthier and more productive natural, economic, and political environment.

Towards this aim we seek the utilization of these technologies to minimize waste and expedite environmental cleanup vital to our very survival.

The advanced environmental technologies we have developed (air pollution control, alternative energy production, internal combustion efficiency, alternative building materials) and superior technologies such as FORTH will be instrumental to those efforts due to their effectiveness and timeliness in actual 'real life' applications.

Solutions, both environmental, and technological, come about from interaction with the environment with a profit motive in mind, not from theorizing, speculating, legislating, or popularizing them.

The more efficiently and frequently that interaction takes place, the more rapidly an appropriate solution makes itself visible. Indeed, the current state of all living systems is attributable to this interaction cycle.

It is in this vein that FORTH stands as a good example of alternative technology that is unconventional, interactive, and effective. Also because of heavy investment by proponents of top down, bulky, ineffective solutions and the government backing that makes them thrive, FORTH is an example of a technology that has been largely suppressed and overshadowed.

It is our sincerest hope that this package will act as a messenger of these truths to some of our most influential and innovative thinkers, those in computer software, hardware, and applications development, and those still in school along that path. It is also our hope this will act as a gateway between the C and Unix community, that is becoming so widespread, and the exciting developments occurring in the FORTH community.

Additionaly it is hoped that this will be an opportunity for FORTH enthusiasts to integrate into C environments in order to prove the viability of FORTH and develop parallel applications.

A word about restrictions on use is in order. As you notice this software and it's accompanying documentation is Copyrighted (with the exceptions of those portions that were derived from public domain work mostly by the FORTH Interest Group).

You may use this base version for your own personal use and are encouraged to redistribute it freely in it's complete, unaltered form. You may not sell it, however, you may charge a minimal copying fee of less than $10.

If you find that you derive value from it, either by making a profit (using it on your job, etc..), learning enough from it so you can make a profit using that knowledge, or from pure enjoyment then we request you exchange some of that value with us.

A contribution of $30 or more will place you as a registered licensee of HenceFORTH and entitle you to purchase a development system, upgrades, and/or toolkits. In return for your contribution you will receive the registered user version containing the Forth, Inc/Starting Forth
style editor, a glossary, and overlay/boot utility. This should greatly enhance the ability of the system although it is currently a complete workable/extensible system.

If you make significant improvements or port it to new, yet untapped, environments, please contact us about including your upgrades, getting acknowledgment, and adjusted prices on registration and other products.

If you desire to use any of the unique code in this package (including, but not limited to, the inner interpreter, compiler directives, and 64 bit double math words) then contact us about our reasonable license arrangements.

MISSING LINK can provide you with a variety of technical services and products. We can be of assistance in a number of areas from designing your electronic consumer level widget to large real-time or data processing/collection applications. We also offer engineering and fabrication in the areas of air/exhaust gas handling, scrubbing, and chemical resistant custom plastics manufacturing.

Below is an example of the breakdown of our services: (see price sheet below for further information)

                    L E V E L   I

User level consulting, products research/availability, purchasing, applications training.

                    L E V E L   I I

Technical level consulting, programming assistance/instruction, software package installation, hardware system/peripheral installation.

                    L E V E L   I I I

Data entry, operating application software, travel, internal component level replacement, upgrading, OS installation, technical writing, software specifications.

                    L E V E L   I V

Applications programming, board level hardware diagnostics, operating diagnostic/systems software, project management, system design.

                    L E V E L   V

Systems programming, chip level diagnostics w/schematics, datastructure reconstruction w/documentation, chip level hardware design.

                    L E V E L   V I

Chip level diagnostics w/o schematics, difficult crash recovery.

                    L E V E L   V I I

Reverse engineering, debugging existing software/hardware.

Please see price list below for current pricing. Call for estimates on services not listed.

NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT:

            GENII DYNAMIC AIR WASHER (c)
                    Model 760

One of nature's most delightful moments is the calm after a storm. The air is fresh, scrubbed clean by the action of wind-driven water as it pulls pollution from the air and rinses it to the ground. Now, thanks to a revolutionary application of this natural principle, you can recreate the purity of storm-fresh air in the lab, home or office with the Genii Dynamic Air Washer(c).

The Genii 760 Airwashers, will remove most contaminants from the air stream in a single pass using only ordinary water. No adding chemicals, no changing filters, just water. Made of chemical resistant plastic, Genii Airwashers are constructed for long life and ease of maintenance. Energy requirements are the same as for a couple of common light bulbs. Overall, Genii Airwashers are the most cost effective solution for fume or contaminant removal problems. Patent Pending.

                    Specifications

Description Quantity Unit

gas flow (open) 62 CFM gas flow (.3" static) 60 CFM in/outlet size 3 Inch PVC Width 11 Inches Height 16 Inches Weight 15 lbs dry Water usage (Max) 4 Gallons/day Water usage (Avg) 1 Gallons/day Electrical 110/220 VAC 1.4 or 0.8 AMPS 162 Watts Reservoir (main) 3 liters
Reservoir (reserve) 2 liters

Genii Dynamic Air Washer (c) delivers air, free of pollution -- without using perfumes or filters of any kind. Just electricity and tap water cleans the fumes of chemistry, smoke, pollen, dust, odors and even viruses from enclosed environments. Also operates efficiently using salt water. The slight humidifying effect reduces static electricity to minimal levels protecting sensitive electronics.

    Made in the U.S.A.  Allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery.
    30 day money back guarantee.  1 Year limited parts
    and labor warranty.  CA residents add sales tax.

Note:

This same technology is available from the size mentioned above up through several thousand CFM. Inquire about custom installations. Also inquire about high temperature exhaust gas and zero gravity units.

July 1991 P R I C E L I S T

Description Available Price Unit S&H

Genii Dynamic Air Washer 760 NOW $549.00 Each $15.00 Hence4th registration NOW $30.00 Each Hence4th Unix toolkit 4Q91 $50.00 Each Hence4th Dos toolkit 1Q92 $50.00 Each Hence4th Development System NOW $100.00 Each Hence4th Btree toolkit 4Q91 $25.00 Each Hence4th Curses toolkit NOW $25.00 Each Level I consulting NOW $10.00 Hour * Level II consulting NOW $20.00 Hour * Level III consulting NOW $30.00 Hour * Level IV consulting NOW $40.00 Hour * Level V consulting NOW $50.00 Hour * Level VI consulting NOW $60.00 Hour * Level VII consulting NOW $70.00 Hour *

*Plus direct expenses.

ABOUT HENCEFORTH IN C

HenceFORTH in C was written as an internal project to MISSING LINK. It's purpose was to provide a powerful direct and cross development environment that could keep up with advances in technology with a minimum hassle. Unix, being the system of choice for most large programming and interconnectivity projects in the marketplace, became a matter of necessity. Similar logic was used with the choice for C as the source language. It seems to be the one thing you can count on in these days of more and more complex instruction set compilers and unique processor architectures.

Priority was given to traditional FORTH values: Simplicity, economy, elegance, and flexibility to name a few. Also great effort went into optimizing the 'heart of the FORTH engine'; the inner interpreter. If you know FORTH, we think you will agree HenceFORTH has the most advanced inner interpreter of any high level FORTH around. Our philosophy is simple: great things can be built on a great foundation.

HenceFORTH is largely based on FIG model as found in the figFORTH Installation Guide and Glossary as sold by Mountain View Press (see below). The FIG (Forth Interest Group) model, although considered obsolete by many, was chosen because it offered the greatest cross section of documentation and source listings. Also, since some of our foundations are with PolyFORTH whose roots go back to the FIG days, we found it the most familiar. Through all the turmoil going on these days in the FORTH community about standards, many still consider the lowly figFORTH (or it's close cousin FORTH-79) to be their favorite and with good reason; It still offers flexibility, simplicity, speed, and a relatively good software/documentation base (just about everybody knows or remembers figFORTH).

FigFORTH internals were simple enough to be manipulated directly in a semi-portable manner. Also upgrading figFORTH to FORTH-79, FORTH-83 and ANS-FORTH are usually no more difficult than loading a compatability module (usually called a 'prelude').

The base HenceFORTH system consists of the following files:

Name Description

makefile controls construction of all the modules words.h CPP directives for FORTH pseudocode, machine generated prims[1-2].c C programs for FORTH primitive operations, machine generated words[1-5].c C programs for FORTH secondary operations, machine generated compiler.h Hand coded compiler ops. These override their counterparts in words.h. hence4th.c Initialize the system. Define the dictionary/memory map. Default values for user variables. Some stuff in this file may be system dependent especially in the initsys()/goodbye() functions and the sysalign() function. misc.h This file just contains macros/constants that might be needed that can't be found anywhere else. declare.h Declarations for global data/functions in misc.c config.h Configuration information. Set this up for your system. dr0 The source code/block/screen file. Currently contains only error messages. Register your copy for more utilities.

HenceFORTH Ver 1.2 currently compiles under Xenix 3.2 68K (Unix V7), MIX Power C (Small model, MS-DOS), and Desmet's Personal C Compiler (SHORTCELL, MS-DOS). We are interested in modifications to other popular environments (OS2, SYS V, BSD, MSDOS, WINDOWS 3.0, etc...). If you find yourself porting HenceFORTH try to change the code so as not to break the currently running version by making maximum use of conditional compiling and preprocessor directives. Then contact us as directed above.

A few notes about the development system mentioned in the price sheet. HenceFORTH in C is mostly generated from a FORTH pseudocode (as defined in 'words.h' and 'compiler.h' and a series of macros programmed in the M4 macro programming language popular on most Unix systems. Hand coding the HenceFORTH dictionary structure is a tedious chore as well as building the pseudocode in 'words.h'. You are welcome to try it if you like. However, our development system, consisting of the M4 macro preludes and all the source files that generate the 'words.h' and '*[1-5].c' files, make extending the system a snap. You can a) do it the hard way yourself, b) buy our development system, or c) hire us to customize your installation for you. The choice is yours. If your custom installation will have a broad enough appeal contact us for a possible software exchange or joint venture.

For further information and documentation about Forth in general:

    Mountain View Press
    Box 429, Star Route 2
    La Honda, CA  94020
    (415) 747-0760

Ask about 'The Forth Encyclopedia' for a detailed description of figFORTH internals. Check out 'All About Forth' for differences between figFORTH and other FORTH standards. 'Starting Forth' and 'Thinking Forth' are good texts for beginning programmers and experienced programmers new to FORTH.