Maxterm question and practicing

[B Clune]

Greetings,

I have designed a robot utilizing the Isopod microcontroller which I hope to be purchasing in the not so distant future and have finally reached the software phase of development so now I am trying to learn the Forth language. I just purchased and recieved the "Starting Forth" book from Amazon.com which is helping me understand the language better.

I am wondering if Maxterm can be used alone to test some Forth programs or is it just a "dumb" terminal? If this won't work in this capacity, is there a Forth language emulator or programming environment for Windows98 (or for DOS) that is close to the Isopod version of Forth? I just want to practice programming and am looking for something free or close to free to practice with. I have been searching on the internet for this and haven't found anything that will work on my computer. Have you any ideas?

[nmitech]

I am wondering if Maxterm can be used alone to test some Forth programs or is it just a "dumb" terminal?

Yes, you can either use Maxterm (dos based), or NMITerm (window based) to work with the IsoPod and practicing with IsoMax and FORTH at the same time.

Download the NMITerm program here,
http://www.newmicros.com/download/NMITerm.zip

[B Clune]

I guess I wasn't clear with my question. Can I use NMITerm alone, without the Isopod connected (I haven't purchased it yet) to practice Maxforth language or do I need to have the Isopod connected to the serial port. I am thinking that NMITerm is just a "dumn" terminal without the Maxforth interpreter built in. Help me out here please.

[nmitech]

Both Maxterm & NMITerm are communication programs similar to Hyperterminal. So You do need to have a IsoPod or any F68HC11 products such as NMIN-0021A, Drop Point, NMIX/T-0020, etc... where the FORTH interpreter is embedded in the Processor FLASH or ROM.

[earlwb]

The only thing I can think of is to download the evaluation copy of the Forth compiler from Forth Inc.
The other possbility is to download one of the old MSDOS based Forth interpreters from the Internet as well.

The ISOPOD's Forth language that is built in, pretty much does everything in the books, except for File I/O and such, I haven't tried that myself. But I would assume file i/o isn't something needed in a ISOPOD at this time. So you shouldn't have any problems doing the examples in the books until you get up to the File I/O or addressing memory mapping issues.