RE: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Re: Interface. Gauging interest.

Mike, Gort,

FORTH! Please, no. You don't really want to impose FORTH on CNC users and
machinists! It would drive them MAD!

While I recall that back in the '80s it had its followers for motion control
(telescopes, I seem to recall), it certainly isn't a language for the casual
user. For a computer linguistics professional, maybe (I will admit that
during the last year I almost considered going and giving it another look.
No, I didn't get back to it).

Even 'C' is probably more then should be foisted on the average CNC user.
BASIC (as mentioned) I suppose should be considered. I added simple "ROBOT"
commands to a 5K BASIC running on an 8085 in those days.

TurboCNC (and no doubt some commercial controllers) probably ALREADY know
enough trig and simple control structures (iteration, sequence and
concatenation) to handle "language" needs.

But if you just want to add high level language constructs to Gcode, why not
just write a C or BASIC (or whatever) program to GENERATE Gcode for you!
This has already been done many times. Think of Gcode (or G100) as just a
protocol for sending the data to the machine.

Alan KM6VV

>
> The apropriate way to use FORTH for this type aplication is to add a
> new vocabulary that is G code.
> This would allow direct execution of your G code within FORTH.
> Just my 2 cents.
>
> --- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, Mike Pogue <mpogue@...> wrote:
> >
> > I've been thinking about this.... There's a language that was
> built for
> > exactly this kind of machine control thing: Forth. It's tiny,
> > extensible, and fast. It's mature. It's designed for machine
> control.
> >
> > But, the world operates on g-code nowadays, so it's not clear to me
> that
> > a language switch makes sense at this point in time. Here's why --
> a
> > new language could certainly be done (fairly easily), but would
> anybody
> > use it? You and I would, but how about all the other vendors out
> there?
> > It would require new drivers (post processors) for CAM software.
> And,
> > new training for 1000's of operators.
> >
> > So, the benefits of a new language (whatever syntax you choose)
> would
> > have to be large/compelling, to overcome the disadvantages, I think.
> >
> > Mike