Smalltalk Solutions

Maurice Rabb m3rabb at stono.com
Wed Apr 3 23:23:28 UTC 2002


At 9:06 AM -0800 4/3/02, Dan Ingalls wrote:
>Folks -
>
>I just wanted to reinforce Alan Knight's reminder that the Smalltalk 
>Solutions conference (http://www.gosmalltalk.com) is coming up very 
>soon (the 21st-24th).

[snip]

>  Also John McIntosh will be talking on garbage collection.  While 
>I'm not sure what Maurice Rabb has been up to recently, I notice 
>he's going to be there, too.

[snip]



Hi All,

I will be coming out of lurker mode and making a presentation at 
SS2002.  Over the past year I have been working on and off on an 
embeddable Smalltalk.  We where planning to use it in an animated 
watch product that were working on.  Like so many companies, the our 
funding dried up last summer/fall.  Instead of keeping the work 
secret and letting it wither, I have recently been freed to talk 
about it publicly.  Even though the work is incomplete, it is far 
enough along that it is worth sharing, and getting feedback on it.

The sub $10, 16-bit microcontroller platforms we were targeting had 
plenty of Flash but generally less than 32K of RAM.  We wanted to be 
able to develop and debug everything in Squeak, then download it to 
the micro and run it.  (A model of development similar to that of 
PocketSmalltalk.)  It was important to us that it not be just a toy 
Smalltalk but also scale to larger less memory constrained systems. 
However having said this, these "larger" systems are still very 
constrained compared to PCs.

My presentation is scheduled for Wed April 24th at 2:40pm.  It is in 
the last time slot on the last day of the conference, so if you are 
going don't leave too early. ;-)  If you aren't able to make the 
presentation, the slides and a Swiki will be available afterward.  (I 
wanted to use swiki.net but it has been having problems recently. 
<Hint><Hint>)

The abstracts for the conference at 
http://www.gosmalltalk.com/speakers.php  haven't been updates again 
yet so I have included mine below.


>Anyway, it should be a good gathering, and I encourage anyone who 
>was waffling about it to go along and speak, squeak, or just have a 
>good time.
>
>	- Dan


Do come to the conference.  Smalltalk Solutions last year was a 
blast!  I look forward to seeing old and new faces there again this 
year.

See ya,

Maurice





Implementing Smalltalk on Tiny Real-Time System

Rabb, Maurice: Stono Technologies, LLC
Wednesday 2:40 to 3:10

Abstract:  Dynamic object-oriented programming languages are rarely 
used in small or real-time embedded systems.  This presentation will 
discuss implementation techniques originally developed to enable 
Smalltalk to run efficiently on tiny consumer electronic products 
such as animated watches.  The work has application in other domains 
including wireless, medical, industrial, and military equipment.

Topics will include new techniques for: real-time garbage collection, 
scaleable object models, fast ROMable message dispatch and 
resolution, fast and consistent numerics, handling immutability, and 
consistent and easy concurrency.

One of the speaker's goals is to enable Smalltalk to run on new 
cellphones.  Wireless handsets represent a new frontier in computing, 
and possibly an enormous new marketplace for Smalltalk.


Bio:  Maurice Rabb is a technology consultant based in Chicago.  He 
specializes in new product development, design patterns, object 
mentoring, and conceptual blockbusting.  Mr. Rabb is co-founder of 
Stono Technologies LLC, a firm dedicated to the development of new 
technologies for the consumer electronics industry.  Mr. Rabb is a 
Squeaker, and earned his BS and MS in engineering from Stanford 
University.


Attendee Background:  Anyone interest in embedded/real-time/small 
systems, or Smalltalk entrails.  Some familiarly with language 
implementation issues such as GC will be helpful.


-- 
===================================================================
     Maurice Rabb      Stono Technologies, LLC      773.281.6003

             "enlightened design, invisible technology"



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