STOIC
Encyclopedia
STOIC was a variant of Forth.
It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, (part of the Health, Science and Technology Division) and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs
. Jonathan Sachs went on to be the principal programmer of Lotus Development and wrote the first version of Lotus 1-2-3
.
The original version of STOIC was written on a Data General Nova
minicomputer and cross-assembled for the 8080. STOIC came with its own primitive but effective file system, and could be booted up with little preliminary work on any 8080
-based microprocessor
with 24K of memory and a Teletype
machine. After the source was released into the public domain, the system was subsequently modified to run under CP/M
.
STOIC was said at the time 'to be conceptually similar to FORTH in the use of an extensible vocabulary of words'. . STOIC is actually a rational, and more consistent, dialect of FORTH. The system was remarkable at the time for having a built-in assembler, floating-point package, interrupt handler, and display editor (similar to the Nova display editor). The source, and documentation, was distributed for many years by the CP/M Users Group.. As a practical development system, it compared favourably with contemporary implementations of FORTH, and went on to be used extensively for the development of applications. A portable version written in C was placed in the public domain and also distributed by the CP/M Users Group (UK)
Later it was ported to the DEC
VAX
under VMS by Roger Hauck
at Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory
(SAO) and was distributed by DECUS
.
It was distributed at least through fall 1985.
STOIC, unlike other FORTH variants, was integrated with the VMS
I/O and system services rather than using the FORTH disk I/O. It also supported machine code (both inline and subroutine calls). STOIC supported double precision floating point operations using a stack.
STOIC was originally written by Jonathan Sachs in 1975.
A different program named LSE was written by Robert Goeke, which incorporated some of the ideas of STOIC (an early version may have been called STOIC).
An autotooled
variant of LSE, LSE64, is maintained by John Doty.
It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, (part of the Health, Science and Technology Division) and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs
Jonathan Sachs
Jonathan Sachs was the programmer who co-founded Lotus Development Corporation with Mitch Kapor in 1982 and created the first version of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program...
. Jonathan Sachs went on to be the principal programmer of Lotus Development and wrote the first version of Lotus 1-2-3
Lotus 1-2-3
Lotus 1-2-3 is a spreadsheet program from Lotus Software . It was the IBM PC's first "killer application"; its huge popularity in the mid-1980s contributed significantly to the success of the IBM PC in the corporate environment.-Beginnings:...
.
The original version of STOIC was written on a Data General Nova
Data General Nova
The Data General Nova was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by the American company Data General starting in 1969. The Nova was packaged into a single rack mount case and had enough power to do most simple computing tasks. The Nova became popular in science laboratories around the world, and...
minicomputer and cross-assembled for the 8080. STOIC came with its own primitive but effective file system, and could be booted up with little preliminary work on any 8080
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility...
-based microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
with 24K of memory and a Teletype
Teletype Corporation
The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment...
machine. After the source was released into the public domain, the system was subsequently modified to run under CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
.
STOIC was said at the time 'to be conceptually similar to FORTH in the use of an extensible vocabulary of words'. . STOIC is actually a rational, and more consistent, dialect of FORTH. The system was remarkable at the time for having a built-in assembler, floating-point package, interrupt handler, and display editor (similar to the Nova display editor). The source, and documentation, was distributed for many years by the CP/M Users Group.. As a practical development system, it compared favourably with contemporary implementations of FORTH, and went on to be used extensively for the development of applications. A portable version written in C was placed in the public domain and also distributed by the CP/M Users Group (UK)
Later it was ported to the DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
under VMS by Roger Hauck
at Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is a research institute of the Smithsonian Institution headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it is joined with the Harvard College Observatory to form the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics .-History:The SAO was founded in 1890 by...
(SAO) and was distributed by DECUS
DECUS
The Digital Equipment Computer Users' Society was an independent computer user group related to Digital Equipment Corporation.The Connect User Group Community, formed from the consolidation in May, 2008 of DECUS, Encompass, HP-Interex, and ITUG is Hewlett-Packard’s largest user community...
.
It was distributed at least through fall 1985.
STOIC, unlike other FORTH variants, was integrated with the VMS
OpenVMS
OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
I/O and system services rather than using the FORTH disk I/O. It also supported machine code (both inline and subroutine calls). STOIC supported double precision floating point operations using a stack.
Related programs
According to some mailing list comments,,STOIC was originally written by Jonathan Sachs in 1975.
A different program named LSE was written by Robert Goeke, which incorporated some of the ideas of STOIC (an early version may have been called STOIC).
An autotooled
GNU build system
The GNU build system, also known as the Autotools, is a suite of programming tools designed to assist in making source-code packages portable to many Unix-like systems....
variant of LSE, LSE64, is maintained by John Doty.