This is completely unrelated to anything 6502-related, but I thought folks would find interest nonetheless.

Some people here might know that I used to have a blog on my website, falvotech.com, which was managed by Serendipity. At around July 2009, those subscribed to the blog would have seen a sharp decline in article traffic. Specifically, zero new content.

Readers of my older blog articles also knew my intentions of writing a blog in Forth. I mostly joked about it, but the intention was there.

In August 2009, I made good on a promise which has been standing for several years prior: I revealed my new blog, written in Forth, for the first time to the rest of the world. Concurrently, I also revealed its engine: Unsuitable.

Well, a year later, and despite still only having 8 RSS followers, it seems to be generating a small amount of word-of-mouth buzz. I've been conscripted into giving a tech-talk on it at work, 2nd week of September. I'll see if I can get clearance to release the video publicly.

For those who grok Forth and web application development, you might be interested in how I made it all work together. The complete source code is hosted on BitBucket.

Anyway, I thought you folks might be interested in this. Unsuitable's reception at SVFIG was predictably warm, and where I work, surprisingly accomodating, despite the disbelief surrounding the use of Forth. OTOH, the published performance metrics for the website, plus the fact that it worked at all, helped convince many to re-evaluate Forth as a viable programming language.

The front-page to the blog also supports a link for its RSS feed as well.

Good work.

It sounds like they didn't want it to work, but they were forced to acknowledge its validity. Again, good work.

Hmmm... I see from "Unsuitable Celebrates First Birthday" that August 9 is the happy day -- which happens to be my own birthday too

Keep up the good work, kc5tja! I'll be sure to pass the link along to some buddies of mine who are Forth fans.

Oh -- and, as for being "Off Topic"? No problem! IMO it's actually appropriate that Unsuitable is Impertinent!

-- Jeff

I would like to see your presentation. I hope you get clearance! The best minds here seem to push Forth, I am all ears & eyes.

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

It appears this post caused so much traffic that your site went down.

Dimitri

No, my apartment is being fumigated, which is why the site is down. I self-host the blog.

It will return no later than Sunday.

Thanks for the update.

I hope the fumigation goes well.

Dimitri

I hope so too. We'll find out tomorrow evening. The website should be back online no later than Sunday evening.

I know this may sound weird, but when we let our dogs in the house and had to fumigate due to fleas afterwards, I "lit off" a flea bomb. The kind where you have to leave for 1/2hr. Anyway, soon afterwards my 3.5" drives started failing and I became suspect of all 3.5" media which happened to be in the room I lit the flea bomb. I think the fumigatory dust deposited on the 3.5" media somehow. Soon afterwards, the 3.5" drives were defunct. Not sure why, never did any research, but it was a very strange coincidence.

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

The chemical used in the fumigation at my apartment is a colorless, odorless gas called sulfuryl flouride, aka Vikane. Since it's a real gas, and not a vapor, it should not condense on anything, thus no damage to spinning media should occur.

Of course, we'll see how things go.

Sorry to hear about your 3.5" media -- was it the drive itself that went, or the media?

I had 2 drives in 2 computers in 2 different rooms. All 3.5" media was in fumigated room. Soon after the flea bomb, both drives were unable to read the suspected contaminated media, then I found out new media also would not format.

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

Sounds like the chemicals used were corrosive to the plastic insulation in the read/write heads. That's a shame.

Hopefully SO2F2 won't damage my harddrives. If I have to get new harddrives, that would be a catastrophe.

Harddrives are sealed, so you should be fine no matter what they spray.

Dimitri

Yes, by 3.5" drive, I meant the floppy, the one with removable media. Funny if I meant the 5 1/4" hard drive!

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65Org16:https://github.com/ElEctric-EyE/verilog-6502

Actually they aren't sealed. There's a pressure equalization port (aka "breather") that lets highly filtered air in or of the enclosure as the internal drive temperature changes. Hermetically sealed drives are used for specialized applications, usually at high altitudes. You won't find anything like that today in the average workstation or server.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!