Reviving TUNES

[Tom Novelli]

   I've been working on my own little Forth-OS project for a while, not
really paying attention to Tunes.  I guess I didn't miss much... it barely
looks alive.  I'm getting into it again... I'd really like to see some of
these ideas put into practice, breath some life into it...

   Our holy grail is the Garbage Collected Distributed Persistent Object
Store... and we also want language translation, migration, abstract
interfaces, an optimizing compiler, automatic proof of correctness... 
Let's set all that aside for now and reach for something within our
grasp: "TUNES--", because that's better than nothing, better than unix
or windows.
   I wouldn't worry about translating C programs automatically... it's
probably easier to do it by hand, or better yet, start from scratch. 
Bad languages make for bad programs which could really use a redesign.

   The "official" plan is to use Forth as the LLL (we'll need a few I/O
drivers too) and Scheme as the HLL- (we'll want a simple memory manager
for that).  We can use Retro-Forth as the LLL and model our Scheme after
TinyScheme.  Retro also has an assembler.  We can do a lot with Forth and
Scheme; it could be a useful OS, as-is.  TUNES--.
   Then we'd get started on this Persistent Object Store (simple at first) 
and an automatic proofing program.  After that, eventually, I guess we'd
meet up with the real HLL - Slate or something like that.  Whoever does
the HLL will have plenty of time... it would be pointless to set a date
for any of this stuff because you KNOW we'll be late. :)  Just take it as
it comes.. 

   I don't intend to do all this; I intend to add networking and graphics
to Retro instead.  I just thought I might inspire someone else to take the
next step. 

Tom Novelli

PS - I'll round up my notes on persistent storage, etc., and upload them.