Subject: [Iotops] Could a device with an email address, a password and a FORTH-like langauge interpreter be of use in The Internet of Things?

From: William_J_G Overington <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2020 13:14:32 +0000 (GMT)

I am wondering if one could have an Internet of Things thing that 
includes on a printed document inside the sealed box that contains the 
thing when bought.an email address and a password.
A person who knows the email address of the device could then send an 
email to the thing and get a reply by email.
As a basic example the thing could have a thermometer and respond to an 
email enquiry as to the temperature. Some devices could have other 
facilities.
A person who knows both the email address and the password of the device 
can send it emails that are acted upon because the thing has built-in to 
it an open source software system, a modern updated version of a 
FORTH-like language interpreter.
This would include the ability to program commands that anyone who knows 
the email address of the thing could then use.
I first met the FORTH language (the name is apparently because it was 
the FOURTH version of something, but the computer system upon which it 
was first implemented only allowed five-letter file names, all 
capitals).in a hobbyist computer magazine in the 1980s. I wrote a small 
cut-down version of FORTH for use on a mainframe computer for the 
experience - I either programmed it in FORTRAN or Pascal, I do not 
remember which.
I mentioned a modern updated version of a FORTH-like language.
FORTH was not typed.
Some experiments that I carried out starting in 2000 were for a 
highly-typed FORTH-like language - there were float, integer, complex, 
quaternion, character and string types.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/14560000.htm
Thus the device would be under the complete ownership of whoever bought 
it in and could be programmed to do what is wanted by the owner within 
the limits of the capabilities of the thing, such as whether it measures 
temperature or moves a camera around and takes photographs or whatever.
Do such devices already exist, could they exist, is it a good idea?
William Overington
Monday 2 November 2020