Swap Dragon Prize¶

Reference: https://wiki.forth-ev.de/doku.php/en:infos:drachenpreis

Every year the Forth Society e.V. honours an outstanding personality for his/her Forth activities. Started in 1986 as a plastic toy trophy, the SWAP-Dragon has been reborn in 1997 as a beautiful bronze sculpture.

How it all began¶

When the programming language Forth became publically available in the early 80s, the book Starting Forth by Leo Brodie, formerly Forth Inc., was one of the sources for beginners. It became very popular not only because of the entertaining text but also because the insightful images, that described the different system components and operators as comic figures. To explain the operator SWAP Leo Brodie used a little two-headed dragon, which is today known as the SWAP-Dragon. Below is the original comic from the first edition of Starting Forth that allowed so many of us to understand, what SWAP was supposed to do:

The word SWAP is defined to swich the order of the top two stack items. As with the other stack manipulation operators, you can test SWAP at your terminal in “calculator style”; that is, it doesn’t have to be contained in a definition. - Leo Brodie in Starting Forth 1st ed, p. 44

But this is not the only reference to SWAP in Starting Forth. When SWAP sees the operator ROT, which exchanges the upper three entries of the data stack, he shivered over so much complexity:

The SWAP becomes the unofficial mascot of the FORTH society. Sometimes he appears on Forth-Shirts and on beer mugs (?) - and always in our heads..

1986 – A prize is born¶

On its second yearly conference the FORTH society initiated the SWAP-Dragon prize, with which Michael Kalus was honoured for his enormous work in the early days of the Vierten Dimension, the member journal of the FORTH society. When he was presented with a little two-headed toy dragon, he was so impressed that he declared:

When this all lasts for 10 years, I will donate one made from bronze.

Although it is still unclear, what he meant with this all, it did last for more than 10 years and there are still witnesses for this amongst us.

The plastic SWAP dragon had a notable property. It smelled surprisingly of strawberries! Unfortunately we cannot show that here. (So much for multimedia :-) Here a photo of the plastic trophy:

The Dragon council¶

Then it was realized, that it is a full task to find a person to honour – the Dragon council, consisting out of all former prize recipients was formed. They meet every year during the annual meeting of the FORTH society and deliberate over a new member to bestow the honour on. Last year’s prize winner has to contribute at least 3 serious suggestions. The SWAP Dragon bronze sculpture

When it became clear that what was meant with this all, must be older than ten years, the work on a bronze sculpture began. Rolf Kretzschmar, former editor of Vierte Dimension and sculptor, created a wonderful SWAP dragon sculpture, that happily bites into the upper stack entry. Here a photo of the SWAP dragon in bronze:

The winners of the award¶

Custodian of the SWAP Dragon¶

Year	Name	Annual meeting location
1986	Michael Kalus	Buchholz/Nordheide
1989	Heinz Schnitter	Aachen
1990	Jörg Staben	Frankfurt
1991	Klaus Schleisiek	München
1992	Ulrike Schnitter	Rostock
1993	Jens Wilke	Nürnberg
1994	Jörg Plewe	Malente-Neukirchen
1995	Friederich Prinz	Berlin
1996	Klaus Kohl	Mittweida-Höfchen
1997	Ulrich Hoffmann	Ludwigshafen
1998	Bernd Paysan	Neukirchen-Vluyn
1999	Fred Behringer	Oberammergau
2000	Egmont Woitzel	Hamburg
2001	Martin Bitter	Hamminkeln-Dingden
2002	Hans Eckes	Garmisch-Partenkirchen
2003	Thomas Beierlein	Lambrecht
2004	Ewald Rieger	Burg-Staaken (Fehmarn)
2005	Johannes Reilhofer	Krögis bei Meißen
2006	Carsten Strotmann	Witten (Ruhrgebiet)
2007	Anton Ertl	Baden (Wien)
2008	Manfred Mahlow	Kloster Roggenburg (Ulm)
2009	Stephen Pelc	Neuenkirchen (bei Rheine)
2010	Jörg Völker	Rostock-Warnemünde
2011	Friedel Amend	Goslar
2012	Erich Wälde	Beukenhof in Biezenmortel (NL)
2013	Gerald Wodni	Garmisch-Partenkirchen
2014	Willi Stricker	Bad Vöslau
2015	Karsten Roederer	Hannover
2016	Thomas Prinz	Augsburg
2017	Klaus Zobawa	Kalkar
2019	Matthias Koch	?

English translation by Sabine Bodzian.