Would be intrested making a mailing list/group?

[turco32]

Hello,

I had my computer die on my and was using Cuis-smalltalk to learn smalltalk. The only computer like thing i had left was my raspberry pi zero w. your work saved me. thank you so much for doing this.

I was wondering if there would be interest in a mailing list or a group discussion for crosstalk, talking about just pure old smalltalk-80, since most groups are more about the modern implementations of smalltalk. even a slack might work. thoughts?

[michaelengel]

Hi Joseph,

On 19 Jul 2021, at 15:20, Joseph Turco ***@***.***> wrote: I had my computer die on my and was using Cuis-smalltalk to learn smalltalk. The only computer like thing i had left was my raspberry pi zero w. your work saved me. thank you so much for doing this.

Great to hear that you like it and I am happy that my little project was useful for you! Did you actually encounter the bug that the system crashes on an ARMv6-based Raspberry Pi such as the Zero (and the original Raspberry Pi 1) when executing certain drawing operations? Unfortunately, I still haven't had time to find the reason for this...

I was wondering if there would be interest in a mailing list or a group discussion for crosstalk, talking about just pure old smalltalk-80, since most groups are more about the modern implementations of smalltalk. even a slack might work. thoughts?

I don't know how much interest there is overall, but I certainly like the idea. The current system is limited to the original Smalltalk-80 constraints, e.g. it can only use about 1 MB of memory due to pointer limitations and the video resolution is constrained to 1 megapixel in black and white. There is also no networking. I have several ideas for the system which should keep the spirit of the original Smalltalk-80 system. The first one would be to implement a 32-bit VM as described by DEC for the VAX version in the Green Book, so more memory (and possibly color displays) could be supported with low overhead. The second one would be to add networking support. The Blue Book only mentions "If a connection to a communications network is available, it can be accessed through objects as well." but gives no details. I would expect that the Xerox system supported some sort of Ethernet on the Alto or one of the D-series machines (either the experimental 3 MBit or the standard 10 MBit version), but could not find details. Mario Wolczko planned Ethernet support for his PERQ Smalltalk-80 port, I have to ask him if this was ever implemented... Finally, we are working on a port to RISC-V – we already have ports of Niklaus Wirth's Project Oberon as well as Plan 9 and Inferno, so Smalltalk would make a nice addition. I have several RISC-V boards here, all that's missing is some more time. Best wishes, Michael

[turco32]

Thanks for the response.

It's great to hear that you are looking to build on top of what's already here. Ive yet to use the drawing tools to replicate a crash, but i have had issues with when i type, it does a double stroke of the key sometimes (pressing t will display tt). if i get to drawing (following the blue book now) ill let you know. If you want to setup a channel for discussion, let me know if i can do anything to set it up.

regards,

Joseph Turco.

[turco32]

I make a issue ticket with circle if this is out of your hands:
rsta2/circle#240

[JTurco32]

Hey, This is turco32, i lost access to my account.

I recently got a pi 400, and i tried booting it. It didn't boot. Not sure if your aware or not. not looking for you to fix it or somthing, just letting you know :).