[svfig-announce] Meeting December 15

[Kevin Appert]

SVFIG Meeting December 15, 2007 --- this Saturday

At Cogswell College, 1175 Bordeaux Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA

*** SEE IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SECURITY RULES
AT BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE ***

Main page --> <<<http://www.cogswell.edu>>>
Directions --> <<<http://www.cogswell.edu/directions2campus.html>>>

We are likely to be in our usual room - 197 A and 197 B
Marked in red on this floorplan:
<<<http://www.forth.org/svfig/room-map.jpg>>>

=========================================
Please note that due to a business trip, email server
problems and other vagaries of fate, some of the items
on this schedule have not been properly confirmed.  If I
have any of the descriptions, titles or content wrong
consider it part of the exciting, informal experience of
SVFIG.  In particular I was unable to close the loop
with Masa and his talk may not be happening at all.
Note that if some of the good stuff runs long, the
obvious filler will be shortened or eliminated.
=========================================


AGENDA
09:45  --- COFFEE AND A CHAT

10:20 ---  FORTH DAY 2008 --- Kevin Appert
Suggest a speaker or volunteer to speak!

10:30 --- WHAT'S WRONG WITH FORTH TODAY?  --- Glen Haydon
Glen has seen the evolution of Forth since the days of the FIG model and 
has some comments on the twists and turns it's taken along the way.

11:15 --- WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT?  --- All
We'll take up topics, seemingly at random, of technical or common 
interest.  Some thoughts:

HOW MUCH IS THAT PUPPY LINUX IN THE THUMB DRIVE?
Puppy is an older, interesting small Linux small enough to boot from a 
thumb drive.  Or was it Damn Small Linux?  Are there better, more modern 
thumb-drive implementations?  How does one find, download and install? 
How big a drive do you need?  A brief tutorial on installing Feisty Fawn 
Ubuntu will be presented.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/09/21/usb-ubuntu-704-persistent-install/

THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY
There is a "phased array" of 42 - 6 meter radio telescopes just north of 
Mount Lason.   Maybe Ed will come and talk about it in January.
          http://www.hcro.org/index.html
          http://ral.berkeley.edu/ata/
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array

HOW FAST IS IT, ANYWAY?  --- Is Firewire faster?  USB 2.0?

REPAIR AND RESTORE USING LIVE CDs --- you can restore the bootstrap on a 
hard disk, reset the password, diagnose network problems and a million 
other things.  We'll talk about the Bootable Business Card, Finnix, and 
so on.

NOON --- LUNCH
Some folks bring their lunch, some folks go to Togos.

13:00 --- INTRODUCTIONS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, RUMORS, RANDOM ACCESS

13:15 THE OBJECT-ORIENTED ANALYSIS OF MORSE CODE TO TEXT --- John E. Harbold
     John will present his very preliminary work (no PowerPoint slides),
carrying on the Morse Code theme from Forth Day.  The problem of Morse
Code to text will be analyzed using the Executable UML method of Mellor
& Balcer.  The problem will be broken into manageable objects and the
relationships between the individual objects.  Objects can be passive or
active.  Passive objects are those that just have data and methods that
access them.  On the other hand, active objects have one state machine
that responds to events.  This will be only analysis, no design or
implementation will be discussed.

14:00 THE SVFIG FILM FESTIVAL
SHANNON SYSTEMS,  FUNDS TRANSFER IN FORTH --- Larry Miller
     In 1986 Shannon Systems was a start-up doing a dial-up modem secure
(encrypted) funds transfer system. This was a pretty ambitious project,
and the software was entirely FORTH-based.  Two "Famous FORTHers", whom
old-timers will remember, Mitch Derick and Linda Baker, did major tasks
on this project.  Larry will describe the system and show video from
"Completion Day" and "Demo Day".

MASA's CLIP --- Masa Kasahara
Masa has a clip he'd like to show us, at press time it wasn't clear what 
it was or if he'll have time to prepare.

FORTH TV
We'll look for videos of Forth Day and other Forthish stuff on the web. 
  Old TV appearances,  You-Tube, Google Video, are all fair game.  Maybe 
highlights from Forth Day 2007.

YOU'LL BE EATEN BY A GRUE --- M.C. Frontalot
We'll carefully analyze all the text-adventure references in the "It's 
Pitch Dark" video.
http://www.frontalot.com/

16:00 --- ADJORN

=========================================

The schedule above may be reformatted or line-justified but
please transmit verbatim or not at all.   Any font you like is
alright with me.

No Newsgroup posts or other media distribution this month please!

 > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wireless Internet access is anticipated (though not guaranteed)
at Cogswell, so bring your wifi.

 > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coming to SVFIG SOON:
* Bring speaker suggestions TO EVERY MEETING!

* PLANNING FORTH DAY 2008 - EVERY MEETING

* Andy Korsak has been working on accessing sound cards from
Forth for amateur radio applications.  His preliminary
work is posted at the Win32Forth Yahoo group under
files/users/korsak.  Membership is required to see the files.
If you don't want to jump through the hoops, Dave has posted
a recent version of the files here:
  <<<http://www.forth.org/svfig/SoundCardIO.zip>>>

* The world's second Babbage Engine is coming to town.  Maybe
we can have a meeting at the Computer History Museum and have
a look.  Ting should have an E-Forth written for it by then.

 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check the SVFIG web site at http://www.forth.org/svfig/
for last minute changes to this schedule.
The most up-to-date meeting information is at
http://www.forth.org/svfig/next.html

Many thanks to our wonderful Webmaster, Dave Jaffe.

Preliminary agenda along with schedule updates and
discussion may frequently be found on the SVFIG email list.
To subscribe send email to geoperry_at_gmail.com

Please let us know if this isn't your preferred email address for the
SVFIG-Announce mailing list.  Thanks for your patience.

Please suggest a speaker or present at a SVFIG meeting.
Email me, Kevin Appert,  forther_at_comcast.net  (see the
return address)

Please do not attempt to reply to svfig-announce at ...

=========================================

*** IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT GETTING INTO THE MEETING ***

Cogswell  now secures its doors on weekends. There will be an
SVFIG member at the door unless he's gone to get coffee or pee
because he's had too much coffee.  He'll only be there BEFORE
the meeting to let you in so please try to get there before the start.
If you are attending an SVFIG meeting for the first time, please
bring along a printout of the agenda to identify your interest in
Forth and gain admission. If you arrive after 10:15 AM there
will be a number for you to call to alert someone of your presence
at the door. The front door will also be checked at intervals of 20
to 30 minutes to accommodate those without cellphones.

VERY IMPORTANT:
Do not under any circumstances let any stranger past the Cogswell
doors.  Those who are authorized to be inside have key-cards.