SN-FORTH/MSX: a state notation system for controlling behavioral experiments with a low-priced computer

A software system, SN-FORTH/MSX, has been developed to control behavioral experiments with a low-priced personal computer, MSX. Designed on the model of state notation, SN-FORTH/MSX enables researchers to program easily a wide variety of behavioral procedures including complex processes that are hard to describe with conventional programming languages such as BASIC and C. Since the real-time monitor of this system has a capability of parallel processing of multiple state-sets, several independent experiments can be simultaneously conducted with a single computer. Users can observe and modify the working of real-time monitor in each instant with a set of run-time commands supplied in the system.