Try Forth

#1

Post by grifaton » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 6:31 PM UTC

Try Forth
forthfreak.net

Re: Try Forth

#2

Post by sgt » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 7:14 PM UTC

Cool stuff. Great for learning Forth. I'm thinking of programming a custom forth for a particular microcontroller I got my hands on.

Re: Try Forth

#3

Post by paulsnx2 » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 7:40 PM UTC

Ah brings back the days! Once upon a time I did most of my programming in a Forth like language we called "Fifth".

Eclipse today is almost bringing Java development to the point that it is sort of as productive as the Environment we built for Forth that ran on 20 Mhz PCs with 16 Megs of memory.

Almost.

What did we have?

Lazy compilation (functions compiled as needed rather than making us wait for a full compile) which doesn't exist today for Java, unless you count JIT (which honestly is a different concept).

Hot code replacement (that worked every time rather than the "sometimes works" with Eclipse).

Immediate functions for implementing all sorts of functionality algorithmically at compile time instead of writing code generators and initialization functions.

Instant initialization (a side effect of Immediate functions). Our Postscript Interpreter booted in milliseconds on a 16 Mhz 68000 as compared to the 1 or 2 minutes for the Apple Lazerwriter.

Hot key navigation -- Eclipse is about on par.

Online help -- Eclipse has a bit nicer interface, but ours was pretty near "Wiki Easy" to develop and extend and available on a key stroke.

Graphical interfaces and windows, Syntax completion, Syntax highlighting... All ideas that came later. All we had was character graphics, but we did great stuff with that.

Anyway, Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I miss programming right against the metal, but I also don't miss it too!

Re: Try Forth

#4

Post by colomon » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 8:03 PM UTC

Errr... what's the word for printing the top of the stack? Or some way of getting a result back out?

Re: Try Forth

#5

Post by Someone » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 8:22 PM UTC

colomon wrote: post #4

Errr... what's the word for printing the top of the stack? Or some way of getting a result back out?

. It does drop the top of the stack, too, though.

So, to compute and print 1001, do:

7 11 13 * * .

Also useful: .s non-destructively prints the stack (as does .S ; this forth does appear to be case-insensitive)

Re: Try Forth

#6

Post by ikram » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 8:22 PM UTC

colomon wrote: post #4

Errr... what's the word for printing the top of the stack? Or some way of getting a result back out?

Full stop/period, e.g.:

  2 2 + .

For a full list of words enter 'words'

Re: Try Forth

#7

Post by pietrofmaggi » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 8:22 PM UTC

colomon wrote: post #4

Errr... what's the word for printing the top of the stack? Or some way of getting a result back out?

simply use the dot.

try: 2 3 + .

Re: Try Forth

#8

Post by makmanalp » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 8:23 PM UTC

paulsnx2 wrote: post #3

Ah brings back the days! Once upon a time I did most of my programming in a Forth like language we called "Fifth". Eclipse today is almost bringing Java development to the point that it is sort of as productive as the Environment we built for Forth that ran on 20 Mhz PCs with 16 Megs of memory. Almost. What did we have? Lazy compilation (functions compiled as needed rather than making us wait for a full compile) whic…

I would love to have more information about this... Who made it? Do you still have the sources / docs?

Re: Try Forth

#9

Post by pietrofmaggi » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 8:24 PM UTC

If someone is looking for a great forth tutorial/book, one of the best is "Thinking Forth" by Brodie. Now available as an open project: http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/

Re: Try Forth

#10

Post by rwmj » Sun, Aug 14, 2011, 8:30 PM UTC

colomon wrote: post #4

Errr... what's the word for printing the top of the stack? Or some way of getting a result back out?

Period character (with whitespace on either side).

eg:

10 .

10