Re: New Standard Keyboard

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 12:54:45 -0800 (GMT-08:00), Lon
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I don't know if anyone saw this, but it is a new 53 key "alphabetical" layout keyboard.
> I like the fact that it doesn't have all those extra keys I never use.
> 
> http://www.tech-blog.org/story-2786.html
> 
> Knowing that Chuck is always interested in improving keyboards, maybe this one could be used
> for colorforth... (It is pretty colorful ;-)

Looks almost like a child's toy :)
 
I'm becoming very fast with the colorforth layout, but my left wrist
doesnt like it, as the article states. I've tried colorforth on both
ergonomic and non-ergonomic keyboards and both are not too nice on it
(although the ergonomic one is far superior).

Chuck mentioned on his site that he wants to build a custom colorforth
keyboard from scratch someday, and I think this is a great idea. Maybe
the standard keyboard is a good start for it, or even the preliminary
solution.

Only thing I would like to offer is to maybe make it something like 32
keys instead, in order to just add a few to make simple multitasking a
la Tim's mtcf a bit nicer. This would give 5 "terminal" keys, if
desired. Also, 32 keys will fit very nicely into 5 bits :).

This reminds me, I would like to ask how far away a metacompilied
colorforth is, and/or how far individual parts of it are. I'm working
on a small colorforth editor (Howerd Oakford's editor is very nice,
but does not work on standard colorforth without several
modifications. It's given me lots of implementation ideas and
inspiration though). I've gotten lots of experience from it already,
and I am not even close to being done.

This gives me the chance to ask a question. What do you (that means,
everybody reading this) think of adding support for inserting string
literals into source code? There are 3 slots left for additional
colors and/or modes.

Finally, I'd like to ask another question. For a metacompiling native
Forth (any Forth, not just colorforth), how would you create a new
image from the metacompiled source? Theres 3 ways I could think of,

(1) Have it write to disk after it compiled (or just memory, whatever)
(2) Compile it, then jump to a routine that overwrites the old kernel
and replaces it with the new one
(3) Choose which one from above with a word

I'd prefer number 3, but maybe theres other considerations.

> I haven't been able to get colorforth to run on my system yet -- no video. I tried the original version
> some time ago, but hopefull y I'll have more luck with one of the modified versions. I've been spending
> most of my time on a 'traditional' forth similar to eforth, so not sure when I'll be ready to make the jump
> to colorforth.

If you take the time to get hooked, you won't be able to stop. It's
like an addiction :).

Also, Mark Slicker's VESA image has worked on every computer I've
tried it on so far (excluding one with a non-VESA card).

-- Chris
 
> -Lonnie
> 
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