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From: mao@blipyramid.BLI.COM (Mike Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.forth,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: fast threaded code machines (was Re: The winner!)
Message-ID: <38@blipyramid.BLI.COM>
Date: Wed, 22-Jul-87 14:17:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: blipyram.38
Posted: Wed Jul 22 14:17:11 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jul-87 06:35:16 EDT
References: <17623@amdcad.AMD.COM> <14800@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>
Organization: Britton Lee, Inc.
Lines: 21
Summary: used in a forth machine...
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.c:3213 comp.lang.forth:113 comp.lang.misc:565

In article <14800@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>, mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Michael Khaw) writes:
> What ever happened to Novix and their (RISC?) Forth chip?

chuck haley (of forth fame) sold forth machine kits for a while.  he may
still do it.  he designed (or helped design) the chip.  he gave a presentation
to the computer network of kansas city last year, when i still lived there.
the demo was pretty impressive.

his demo "machine" was a cpu board connected to a disk drive and a set of
single-pole contact switches with springs.  there were five switches, all
mounted on a ring of wire about the size of your hand.  this was his keyboard.
i think the demo was to impress upon people that you could get the power of
a vax for very little money.

one other interesting statistic -- the novix chip ate one cycle doing
subroutine calls and returns.  the call could be combined with other operations
and executed in a single cycle.
					mike olson
					britton lee, inc.

					...!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!blia!mao