Dual-stack (Forth) processors

Sorry Rick, but it isn't always true. We certainly port when paid to do so, but we also do it when we like the CPU. The ARM and Coldfire VFX ports were done on our own dime. There are several CPUs we've done cross compilers for that I wish we hadn't wasted time on. We just don't have the budget to do every CPU on the market. In retrospect I consider the decision to support ARM rather than PPC a good one.

Oh yes we do. The VFX code generator was a speculative venture. Yes, we do it with commercial (and sometimes cautious) interest, but MPE at least has a long track record in speculative R&D ventures, including what eventually became the basis of the Europay OTA system.

Stephen

-- Stephen Pelc, snipped-for-privacy@INVALID.mpeltd.demon.co.uk MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time

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Stephen Pelc
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think

Neither am I. :-)

But, seriously, there are a lot of things that you cannot do with a sequential processor, Forth or otherwise. Example: 32 tap FIR filter running at 150MHz, one result per clock. What you can do is have a little Forth (or whatever) processor within the FPGA that loads coefficients into that filter. That's what I implied by the "FPGA way": Use the high-speed capabilities of FPGA's to develop custom processing sub-blocks that a Forth (or something else) processor can then pull strings on. This in contrast to insisting that everything be done with a Forth machine just out of attachment to the language (note that the OP is not suggesting that at all).

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Martin Euredjian
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Martin Euredjian

Because it's implicit in the Usenet standards. The signature seperator is defined as a line consisting of:

One of the relevant standards (possibly RFC850, but I can't remember for sure) states that the sig should always be stripped in replies, and the better newspeaders do it automatically. Usenet standards always assume bottom-posting, so this behaviour is convenient.

Outlook Express breaks all sorts of standards, and can't be regarded as a real news reader in consequence (it's barely adequate even as a mail client). As an example, OE strips all trailing spaces on lines, so it cannot generate a standard-compliant sig seperator. It also does quoting incorrectly, by adding a space following the quote character, and by wrapping quoted lines at the same length as new text (it will also wrap continuous strings - hence the fragmented URLs in OE posts).

I can't even begin to illustrate all of OE's misbehaviour, but this paragraph demonstrates one of it's more fatuous foibles - OE users can't even read it, since it's assumed to be a script attachment!

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  Max
Reply to
Max

While your point is entirely sensible, it just doesn't work, since the most common "news client" in use is probably Outlook Express (Outlook proper can't do NNTP at all), and it simply ignores many Usenet standards. OE users are prevented from quoting correctly, or even generating a standard sig separator.

Personally, I'm not too fussed about top-posting per se. What does irritate is the lazy poster who can't be bothered to edit the quoted text at all, so you end up with reams of irrelevant chat going back to the original post. I'm just as likely to ignore such a post irrespective of whether the new text is at the top or the bottom.

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  Max
Reply to
Max

I don't want to continue an OT conversation posted to so many groups, but can you explain what that means? Why does OE assume the above paragraph is a script attachment? I don't see anything special about it. Hmmm... is it the word begin at the start of a line with two spaces after it?

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Rick "rickman" Collins

rick.collins@XYarius.com
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rickman

Nor did I, really, since I don't like cross-posting either, but I don't know what groups the participants in this thread inhabit, so...

Yep - got it in one.

OE will strip off the lines at the end of the post, and claim that they constitute an attachment named "to illustrate all of OE's misbehaviour, but this paragraph.dat"

- ROTFLMAO!

There's also a massive security hole there, though I don't think I'll go into detail. It's only one such flaw amongst a multitude, however.

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  Max
Reply to
Max

Apparently, that particular bug has been fixed in recent OE versions. ISTR OE v6 did resolve quite a few of the sillier deficiencies, but there's still enough left to make life interesting ;o)

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  Max
Reply to
Max

The hole is smaller than you think, since the "attachment" is empty. Presumably OE didn't find the end of the attachment so just threw the contents away. :)

Reply to
Ken Hagan

Yes, but what if it really WAS a valid script? Like to bet that no-one would open it?

And normal Usenet protections don't apply here. According to all relevant RFCs, such a message doesn't contain an attachment at all, so no NNTP server will strip it (I don't count the news server in IIS, obviously). I don't know of any AV software that intercepts NNTP, traffic either, though that could of course be done.

OE is simply an incident waiting to happen. It would still be over-priced junk if it was $100 cheaper ;o)

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  Max
Reply to
Max

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