[OpenBIOS] Even more findings to report about booting Mac OS 9

[Tarl Neustaedter]

On 2016-Apr-16 21:07 , Programmingkid wrote:
> After looking at the bootscript, I think return stack trashing is not a problem. There are three calls to >r and then three calls the r>. They balance each other out. To show that this is ok, just run this program:
>
> : main
> 1 2 3   \ place these numbers on the stack
>> >r
>> >r
>> >r
> ." doing something" cr
> r>
> r>
> r>
> ." You should see 3 2 1: " . . . cr
> ;
>  
> You will see at the end 3 2 1. 
>
>

The above is guaranteed to work, it's all inside a colon definition
(which means it's compiled as a whole before executing). The issue comes
up when commands using the return stack are used outside colon
definitions. E.g., at the ok prompt or in a boot-script string:

ok 3 >r
ok <do some fancy parsing>
ok r> .

If the parser uses the return stack itself, it might reset the stack
before returning to the ok prompt, causing the third line to do
something unexpected. In the case of Sun's OBP, when parsing things at
the ok prompt, if something issued a "throw", the return stack would be
reset to empty before returning to the ok prompt. I don't know what
cases the Openbios parser might do something similar.

[boot-script-container stuff to try to separate compiling from executing
forth]
> I really like this idea.

It's worth trying to see it gives us further insight on what's going on.
If it's a problem with "here" being used by both the code and the parser
and overwriting each other, the pre-compile will prevent the problem
from occurring by separating the two usages. Good luck!