From Newsgroup: comp.lang.forth

On 2025-05-28, dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

On 27/05/2025 10:33 pm, Alexis wrote:

Thought this community might be interested in this:

"[Philippe] doesnrCOt take a strong stance on whether this should
technically qualify as a Forth implementation, given that the base
implementation lacks stacks, dictionaries, and the ability to define
words. However, it does have an outer and inner interpreter, the ability
to compile and execute code, and most importantly, 'the simplicity and
hacky feeling of Forth.'"

-- https://hackaday.com/2025/05/27/a-forth-os-in-46-bytes/

Interesting in that Forth still has a name and reputation with which folks want to be associated.

Whether the reputation is deserved is another matter. A reason Moore gives for leaving Forth Inc was 'Forth started simple, gradually accreting layers of complexity and that became the culture'. If there's a gene for simplicity it hasn't passed down the generations. We admire the Diogenes of the world. Endlessly listen to their admonishments. But God forbid actually living that.

This is barely a memory poker and assembler; kinda like the Monitor from the Apple I or
the Kim-Uno.
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.forth

Am 12.12.2025 um 11:43 schrieb Anthk NM:

On 2025-05-28, dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

On 27/05/2025 10:33 pm, Alexis wrote:

Thought this community might be interested in this:

"[Philippe] doesnrCOt take a strong stance on whether this should
technically qualify as a Forth implementation, given that the base
implementation lacks stacks, dictionaries, and the ability to define
words. However, it does have an outer and inner interpreter, the ability >>> to compile and execute code, and most importantly, 'the simplicity and
hacky feeling of Forth.'"

-- https://hackaday.com/2025/05/27/a-forth-os-in-46-bytes/

Interesting in that Forth still has a name and reputation with which folks >> want to be associated.

Whether the reputation is deserved is another matter. A reason Moore gives >> for leaving Forth Inc was 'Forth started simple, gradually accreting layers >> of complexity and that became the culture'. If there's a gene for simplicity
it hasn't passed down the generations. We admire the Diogenes of the world. >> Endlessly listen to their admonishments. But God forbid actually living that.

This is barely a memory poker and assembler; kinda like the Monitor from the Apple I or
the Kim-Uno.

Better google for: SectorForth = a minimal Forth system that fits into
a drive's boot sector.
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.forth

On Fri, 12 Dec 2025 15:05:19 +0100
minforth <minforth@gmx.net> wrote:

Am 12.12.2025 um 11:43 schrieb Anthk NM:

On 2025-05-28, dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

On 27/05/2025 10:33 pm, Alexis wrote:

Thought this community might be interested in this:

"[Philippe] doesnrCOt take a strong stance on whether this should
technically qualify as a Forth implementation, given that the base
implementation lacks stacks, dictionaries, and the ability to define
words. However, it does have an outer and inner interpreter, the ability >>> to compile and execute code, and most importantly, 'the simplicity and >>> hacky feeling of Forth.'"

-- https://hackaday.com/2025/05/27/a-forth-os-in-46-bytes/

Interesting in that Forth still has a name and reputation with which folks >> want to be associated.

Whether the reputation is deserved is another matter. A reason Moore gives
for leaving Forth Inc was 'Forth started simple, gradually accreting layers
of complexity and that became the culture'. If there's a gene for simplicity
it hasn't passed down the generations. We admire the Diogenes of the world.
Endlessly listen to their admonishments. But God forbid actually living that.

This is barely a memory poker and assembler; kinda like the Monitor from the Apple I or
the Kim-Uno.

Better google for: SectorForth = a minimal Forth system that fits into
a drive's boot sector.

IIRC a 4k forth is more than do-able (depends on your boot sector size,
I guess). Forth is pretty obscu^w minimal anyhow. After some decades
there's barely any agreement on how to handle text parsing, ISTM.
Unicode? forget it.
--
Bah, and indeed, Humbug
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.forth

"Kerr-Mudd, John" <admin@127.0.0.1> writes:

Unicode?

Here's an example from Figure 1 of our 2005 paper [ertl&paysan05]:

: +L+E+c+o+L ." a+ea+#a+Oa+Ua+|a+Oa+Ua+ua+#" ;
cr +L+E+c+o+L

On Gforth-0.7.3 (from 2008), development Gforth, lxf, and vfx64 this prints

a+ea+#a+Oa+Ua+|a+Oa+Ua+ua+#

as intended. On iForth-5.1 mini this produces the intended output, but
pasting the code into iForth shows the code as:

FORTH> : N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++ ." N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++" ; ok
FORTH> cr N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++N++

SwiftForth 4.0RC89 shows the input as intended, but reports an error
on the definition and, consequently also in the use of the word. If I
instead write

: foo ." a+ea+#a+Oa+Ua+|a+Oa+Ua+ua+#" ;
foo

SwiftForth 4.0.0-RC89 produces the intended output (a+ea+#a+Oa+Ua+|a+Oa+Ua+ua+#).

In any case, several Forth systems handle Unicode (in UTF-8 form)
fine, including in word names. This is mainly due to the great design
of UTF-8, but it does answer your question.

The xchar wordset (an early version of which is proposed in the paper)
has been standardized in Forth-2012, but you actually rarely need to
use words from it.

I used xterm for this work, which showed the Hebrew text
left-to-right, while Emacs 28.2 shows the two input lines
right-to-left (including the parts that are in a left-to-right script;
mixing the two results in tough layout problems).

@InProceedings{ertl&paysan05,
author = {M. Anton Ertl and Bernd Paysan},
title = {Xchars or {Unicode} in {Forth}},
crossref = {euroforth05},
pages = {16--20},
url = {https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/papers/ertl%26paysan05.ps.gz},
pdfurl = {https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/euroforth2005/papers/ertl%26paysan05.pdf},
OPTnote = {not refereed},
abstract = {When dealing with different scripts at the same time
(e.g., Latin, Greek, Cyrillic), or with Chinese
ideograms, 8-bit fixed-width characters are too
narrow. However, many Forth programs have an
environmental dependency on $\code{1 chars}=1$, so
just making Forth characters wider would cause quite
a lot of portability problems. We propose to add
xchars for dealing with potentially wider,
variable-width characters. This extension is
relatively painless, requiring changes in only those
program parts that work with individual characters,
if they should work with the extended characters;
uses of string words need no changes to work with
extended characters. The xchar words can also be
implemented on 8-bit-only Forth systems, so programs
written to use xchars can also work on such
systems.}
}

@Proceedings{euroforth05,
title = {21st EuroForth Conference},
booktitle = {21st EuroForth Conference},
year = {2005},
key = {EuroForth'05},
editor = {M. Anton Ertl},
url = {https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/euroforth2005/papers/proceedings.pdf}
}

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
New standard: https://forth-standard.org/
EuroForth 2025 CFP: http://www.euroforth.org/ef25/cfp.html
EuroForth 2025 registration: https://euro.theforth.net/
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.forth

[Please do not mail me a copy of your followup]

minforth <minforth@gmx.net> spake the secret code <mq2louFm95hU1@mid.individual.net> thusly:

Better google for: SectorForth = a minimal Forth system that fits into
a drive's boot sector.

For the curious:
<https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth>
--
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The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals-wiki.org>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.forth

On 29/05/2025 08:22, Paul Rubin wrote:

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:

My phone is from 2009. Nobody forces me to abandon it. What chance
are you not given.

Even with 2G still existing, there's a BL-5C battery supply problem. If
you get one they're old stock and ready to blow.

I think my laptop in 2005 was a Pentium 3 with 512MB of ram.
It would be almost unusable now.

I have 3GB RAM and 4GB swap on a spinning disc.

Linux vm overcommit has made it unreliable, slow, and the virtual
terminals don't even get a chance when they used to cope with anything.

Now Linux is about to go all opengl with wayland under the supposition
that implementing new independent opengl is easier than implementing new independent X11 :/ nuts
--
Tristan Wibberley

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will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

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