Book of interest: Stack Computers - the new wave

available at https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/stack_computers/

On about 1989 I suspect that the idea of a stack computer was indeed considered “new wave,” but today it’s quite quaint.¹ That said, Stack Computers - the new wave by Philip Koopman is well worth a read for the retro-computing-curious, if for no other reason than the bibliography. The book describes the architecture and run-time characteristics of a breed of computers being developed at the time, led by the Novix NC4016 chip. In addition to performing a survey of a few architectures, the book discusses the traps and pitfalls around programming those machines (there is a lot about Forth as you can imagine). The book ends with some thoughtful discussion about the “future” of stack architectures of which I find particularly interesting. Something that I think would be a fun activity would be to explore that final chapter in depth and compare it to the actual evolution of stack architectures in the intervening years. Perhaps this sort of thing appeals to you too?