The bridges over the Forth are very photogenic at any time of day, but at dusk as a sunset starts, the bridge lights up and I think I managed to catch a pretty good shot.

In Germany there we have this saying that talking about music is like dancing to architecture.

In a simillar way, I find it rather difficult to describe to people why I prefer coding in a language which is usually considererd one or all of the following: old / outdated / dead / feeding-to-a-niche / hard-to-understand - but I will give it a last try:

One of the things I like about the Forth programming language - in this case #esp32forth - is that you can easily add hardware specific words from the Arduino library.

I was missing analogWrite, analogWriteFrequency and analogWriteResolution so I just added those.

But aside from that, using Forth on the ESP32 makes prototyping so much easier: you save yourself the endless cycle of "code, compile, upload, test, code..." since you can actually write your code interactively on the device (using either the Block Editor or the Visual Editor).

Being able to remotely connect to this development environment via either #Http or #Telnet just rounds it up for me.

Maybe it's because it brings me back to the times when I was coding BASIC on my bedsit, but maybe it really is because it is a very efficient way to code ...

#Forth
#ArduinoIDE
#Coding

Yay!

I just made my #TTGO #VGA32 use the #esp32forth variant with #fabgl enabled (a.k.a. #ESP32forthStation ) *and* properly recognize the onboard #sdcard !!

In the end the modification was quite simple, I had to tell the TTGO VGA32 the proper SPI pin configuration for the sd card via SPI.begin() and added that code to the SD.begin word definition.

By default, SD.begin would use the #esp32 default SPI pin configuration which is not being used on the TTGO VGA32 (see TTGO VGA32 pinout).

EDIT: but it took me hours to realize that I used a video resolution which consumed too much memory, causing each attempt to do a "SD.begin" in ESP32forth to fail ... lowering the resolution to 640x200@60 did do the trick!

Time to go to bed ...

#Arduino
#Forth

Datum: Seit Montag, 4. August 2025, bis voraussichtlich Freitag, 29. August 2025 Ort: Forther Hauptstraße auf Höhe der Hausnummer 76 in Fahrtrichtung Gräfenberg Grund: Austausch eines Kanalschachts Verkehrsregelung: Eine Ampel... https://www.wiesentbote.de/2025/08/09/forth-halbseitige-sperrung-der-hauptstrasse/ #VerkehrÖPNV #Eckental #Erlangen #Forth #LandkreisErlangenHöchstadt

One of the things that annoyed me when using #ESP32forth is that with recent versions of the #ArduinoIDE it is no longer possible to use plugins for uploading additional files to the #SPIFFS partition of the ESP32.

There is a workaround solution for ESP32forth that allows a user to copy-paste code into the terminal, which is then stored on the filesystem - but that didn't convince me.

So I spent the last two days tinkering with mkspiffs and esptool.py and finally found a way to not only upload files to the SPIFFS partition but also dumping files *from* that partition back to your computer. All from the command line, no ArduinoIDE and plugins required - see here:

https://ufud.org/posts/2025-08-07-esp32forth-spiffs/

#ESP32
#Forth
#ueforth

After two weeks of not doing anything technical but enjoying my vacation, I have been tinkering with my #ForthDeck again, adding another 64 blocks (64K) of EEPROM based block storage to it, which I connected via the I2C bus.

#Forth
#My4TH
#Hardware

Oh no, not another #retrocomputers post!

I've managed to load a game onto the Ministrel Forth. Without using a tape recorder. I'm so proud I figured it out...

What do they say?

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

Interesting stuff at

https://github.com/markgbeckett/jupiter_ace/

But beware the converted *.wav files didn't work for me. I had to rebuild them from *.tap files with castool.

Thanks to the help of the nice folks at the local #makerspace (https://makertreff.com) my Ministrel 4th Jupiter Ace clone is working again!

„Forth ist eine der jüngsten Programmiersprachen. Sie wurde 1969 von Charles Moore am National Radio Astronomy Observatory in den USA entwickelt.“

#Forth #C64 #retrocomputing

https://mastodon.social/@64er/114948562545934976

Retro Computing Nostalgia meet Open Source Software and Hardware with AgonLight and Neo6502, the incredible evolution of modern Retro computer projects https://olimex.wordpress.com/2025/07/23/retro-computing-nostalgia-meet-open-source-software-and-hardware/ #z80 #w65c02 #retrocomputing #retrogaming #pascal #cpm #forth #basic #cc65

Our submission for #Catjam is complete! @rek and I set out to make a little platformer game in a #forth-like language. We made it a tough parkour type little game, give it a shot! Try to finish it in less than a minute. If you record yourself doing it in less than 45 seconds, send us a link and we'll put it in the game description

play: https://hundredrabbits.itch.io/polycat
source: https://git.sr.ht/~rabbits/polycat
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzH6GchYMNM

... just in case you wonder: I'm currently busy in #64bit land (god I hate #EntraID) but three weeks off next monday.

no plans for the time off, but certainly something #retrocomputing or #forth related.

[High-level language computers] are aesthetically appealing to those not familiar with modern compiler writing technology. It is acknowledged that code generation may be simpler for a high-level language computer. What needs to be made more fully understood is that a high-level language instruction set does not eliminate the need for compilers, nor does it greatly simplify them. The need and complexity of compilers extends far beyond code generation. The amount of code necessary for preprocessing, lexical analysis, syntax analysis, assembly, optimization, loading, error detection, error recovery and diagnostics often dwarfs the part of the compiler concerned with code generation. The level of the target computer does not seem to have enough of an effect on the size of a compiler to warrant a totally new architecture.

Keep it simple!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAxXuz9945g

#Forth
#Programming
#RetroCoding

@Wintermute_BBS Just saw this video and thought of you:

https://youtu.be/FY2WYXOdXoM?si=YGXzn-gaikqG8oG0

Therre's a new programming language for #music written by the guy who wrote #Supercollider, and it's a #FORTH!

[EDIT/UPDATE: It's apparently not precisely a FORTH because it includes lexically scoped variables, so it's FORTH-like.]

How cool is that?

I can't wait to have time to play with it. When I think about it, stack based programming would lend itself to all kinds of creative generative sound and music experimentation very well I think!

Hmm ... first, the german #Forth society (Forth Gesellschaft e.V.) take down their #website due to a "legal dispute" and now, all of a sudden, the website of the #Forth #Interest #Group (FIG) is offline.

Could this be related? And if so, what the heck is going on?!