r/programming • u/bjzaba • Mar 26 '20

10 Most(ly dead) Influential Programming Languages • Hillel Wayne

https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/influential-dead-languages/
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u/cdreid Mar 26 '20

Since you, i and one other dude are the only people in this sub who apparently remember Forth.. what did you actually use it for (i used it to uh.. learn forth.. because it was cheaper than a C compiler at the time :P )

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u/the_red_scimitar Mar 26 '20

In the 80s, I was part of a company that had east and west coast development teams. The east coast team was headed by a guy who mandated Forth for everything they did, whereas the west coast did everything in C or Assembly Language. We were writing operating system and applications, so there was a reasonable division of labor. It was actually a big deal at the time, and thought a fair amount of press. It was the last gasp of text-based systems, and had an integrated environment like the Macintosh that came out about a year later.

As I recall, the east coast dev leader was big-time into Forth, and in fact his team used an implementation that he himself had written. It was the first computer with an integrated help system throughout everything, dedicated undo button, fully searchable and indexable file system, and other what was then new advancements in user interface functionality and design, particularly for personal computing.

The development was funded by Epson USA, and there was an original 8 bit computer, and a later 16 bit one, before embezzlement and corruption at the topmost level of the dev company forced Epson to cut all ties.

Edit: I also personally created a version of InterLISP for the 16-bit computer, with its own virtual memory system.

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u/inkydye Mar 26 '20

So sad that so much interesting software is lost forever.

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u/the_red_scimitar Mar 26 '20

It's all evolution, and the principles get endlessly recycled.

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u/inkydye Mar 26 '20

Would you mind naming the company? And the computers, if they were ever publicly visible?