[svfig-announce] SVFIG Meeting October 28

[Kevin Appert]

Cogswell College, Sunnyvale, CA    October 28  ---  this Saturday

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Canonical boiler plate and Frequently Provided Exhortations
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SVFIG  Meeting Agenda for Saturday, October 28, 2006
At Cogswell College, 1175 Bordeaux Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA
Main page --> <<<http://www.cogswell.edu>>>
Directions --> <<<http://www.cogswell.edu/directions2campus.html>>>

We are likely going to be in our usual room - 197 A and 197 B
<<<http://www.cogswell.edu/upload/Attachment/56-cogswel-lmap.jpg>>>

10:00  --- COFFEE
  <<<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DajO2imVOUE>>>

10:15  --- riscForth, REDUCED INSTRUCTION SET FORTH  --- CH Ting
	     "I am trying to minimize the number of eP32 instructions.
	My goal is to reduce the machine instructions to 16 so that
	they can be encoded in 4-bit nibbles. Here is the current
	instruction list: CALL, RET, IF, ELSE, NEXT, @, !, DUP, DROP,
	OVER, >R, R>, AND, XOR, +, 2/. There is no room for NOP, but
	it can be synthesized with DUP DROP. I think a reasonable
	computer can be built with only these 16 instructions."
	     "My experiments now show that I need 17 instructions.
	I will let people vote to have their favorite instructions
	included."


11:30 --- COUNTING ZIPCODES - Dave Jaffe
	     Dave will describe his completed Forth program that processes
	text files containing zipcodes and country names.

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

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

13:30 --- FORTH RAMBLINGS ---Glen Haydon
	An historical review.


14:32 --- BREAK

15:00 --- FROM THIRD GENERATION LEGO MINDSTORMS TO ... FORTH? --- 
Glen Reuschling
	Glen's presentation will begin with demonstrations of the three
	different incarnations of LEGO's robotics learning systems:
	LEGO-LOGO, LEGO Mindstorms, and LEGO Mindstorms NXT.
	It will be followed by a discussion of the strengths and
	weaknesses of the LEGO systems for classroom use. His talk
	will conclude with some ideas on how a language like Forth,
	combined with a LEGO-like robotics building system, could
	result in a much better learning experience.

16:00 --- ADJORN

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The schedule above may be reformatted or line-justified but
please transmit verbatim or not at all.   Do not exceed
recommended dosage guidelines.  Any font you like is
okay with me.  I prefer Ariel.

Tell your friends!  Newsgroup posts or media distribution
okay, preferably with a link to <<<http://www.forth.org/svfig/>>>

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

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Coming to SVFIG next month:
More Forth Day planning?
Bring last-minute speaker suggestions!

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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 Webmeister, 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

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