Inventio Software

Specialist Instrumentation Design and Programming

Inventio Software Ltd, Bracknell, Berkshire, UK

Please note these two new phone numbers :

(+44) 01344 220088 Mobile 07954 580 833

email : howerd (at) inventio (dot) co (dot) uk

Inventio Software - registered as a computer consultancy in the UK since 1985, and as a limited liability company 2000 Jul 07

Howerd Oakford specialises in real-time, embedded, Internet enabled programming where program size, speed or reliability are critical. Also the hardware to run it on - micro-controller instrumentation and system design. Click here for my CV ,or download it in Word format.

Inventio is Latin for "discovery". Software is the part of a computer that you can't break with a hammer.

Howerd Oakford's personal page - everything you may not want to know about me...

This Web Site was last updated on 2008 Jul 14

Secret-Link

2001 Sep 11 ’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind. - William Shakespeare, King Lear 2005 Jul 7

Inventio Software Ltd

Technical Director : Howerd Oakford Company Secretary : Rod Oakford

Company No. 04029064 VAT No. GB 413-8462-59

Delivery Address : Inventio Software Ltd, No.1 New Villas, ( Junction with Rectory Lane ), Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 7EG, UK

Registered Office : c/o Avalon Accounting, Equity House, 4-6 School Road, Tilehurst, Reading, Berkshire RG31 5AL, UK

Latest News

Software Algorithms - ANS Forth for 32 bit PC Forths

Windows Sockets API wsa.f 2008 Jul 12 New!

PCIdev PCI device viewer. Even works under WinXP/2K/NT ! This program may be of special interest to potential colorForth users to debug troublesome hardware...

colorForth Explorer Edition is the latest colorForth stand-alone operating system, packaged together with a Windows/DOS program to display colorForth source and create bootable floppy disks.

Don't be deceived by the fact that colorForth boots from a floppy - this is an experimental state-of-the-art operating system for a PC. See below for two colorForth papers which may give some insights...

Text

My thoughts on Forth, written down for you to read....

My EuroForth papers collected together here :

2003 The colorForth Magenta Variable an emergent property of a new programming environment

2003 Three Forths Make a Hole how Forth made the extremely difficult happen

2001 colorForth and the Art of the Impossible the title says it all

2000 The Point to Point Protocol in Forth Hayes, PPP, IP, UDP, IPCP for 16 bit micros

1998 Multiple Language Programs Made Easy what you can do with a simple compiler

1997 Forth : Past, Present and Future an attempt to understand Forth

Forth and Not C why you shouldn't use Forth ;)

Forth Versus C why you should use Forth ;)

Token-based Programming for Compact Code getting the most out of the Atmel 89C2051

Software - The following are available for free download!!!

Some of my software tools - I hope they are useful...

Software Algorithms - ANS Forth for 32 bit PC Forths New!

Mostly mathematical, I hope you find them useful – Howerd 2006 Jan 07

PCIdev PCI device viewer. Even works under WinXP/2K/NT ( with some help! ) This program may be of special interest to potential colorForth users to debug troublesome hardware...

PPP.com is a DOS based program to analyse, display and create PPP and Internet protocols. PPP.com is the current evolution of a general purpose scripting environment, adapted to the Point to Point Protocol. Currently it can open a PPP connection to an ISP and send DNS, ICMP, UDP or TCP packets to any IP address on the Internet. PPP.com has not been optimised for program size, as it is a 16 bit Forth program, and nearly fills up the maximum 63K bytes allowed for a .com program. This includes 4K of help text, roughly 3K of protocol descriptor text, an editor, 8086 assembler and Forth compiler. It supports five tasks, two of which monitor PPP and IP packets on each of COM1 and COM2 serial ports. It is programmed in a 16 bit DOS 8086 Forth to allow easy porting to 8 or 16 bit embedded processors.

Cweed is a C source file weeded and scanner. It only changes whitespace ( formatting ) and does not otherwise change the content of the file. This is analogous to weeding a garden, where the plants are left untouched but the bits between may be seriously modified. Cweed is an experiment in specifying a coding standard in the form of an executable program. Cweed is also useful for scanning a file for control characters, removing tabs, or just viewing what is actually there, not processed and formatted by an editor.

cfdos is a DOS program to display colorForth pre-parsed source blocks. This program will work on any computer that runs or emulates DOS, and allows you to view colorForth source, in both normal and "colour blind" mode. It features a file listing utility (F6) which displays all files of type *.BLK in the same directory, and can copy them to a formatted floppy disk.

Hardware

IS5 low-cost embedded non-PC PC

ISL low-cost Local bus

ISR low-cost Remote bus

Links

I just found this excellent overview by R.J Zydenbos : http://www.angelfire.com/in/zydenbos/WhatisForth.html

So you want to know more about Forth? Hint : when searching for Forth related material on the Internet, use “in Forth” as the string, as this excludes the use of the English word “forth” as in “back and forth”. E.g. Google for "in forth" tutorial

www.forth.com - Forth, Inc. , ANS Forth supplier

http://www.mpeforth.com/ - MicroProcessor Engineering , ANS Forth supplier

www.holonForth.com - HolonForth , HolonJ for Java and NEW : HolonX for XML - a novel database Forth/Java/XML environment

FIG - the Forth Interest Group

Forth Java applet - Try out Forth online! Try a local copy here.

Forth Underview - Peter Knaggs' excellent description

Why Forth - a personal view ( very much the same as my own ) from Brad Rodriguez

Forth Books Online

http://home.iae.nl/users/mhx/sf0/sf0.html Starting Forth

http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/ Thinking Forth

Forth Links

http://www.albany.net/~hello/links.htm#Forth a link to more links