Re: What is Forth?

jacko wrote:
yes and no, i will find forth much easier, to implement.

Of course it is. That's one of the primary benefits of Forth.

and to be honest, although simple leading to compact fast VLSI, micron
assembly is a pain in the rear sometimes, so why not provide forth, so
others can provide non cache thrashing c based on this forth?

I'm not objecting to providing a Forth. Why would I? I've been quietly putting Forth and Forth-derived languages in my embedded systems for years to avoid the usual C boredom of edit-compile-link-load-execute-debug-repeat. Virtually every embedded system I've ever worked on started with a Forth or Forth-like interpreter sitting on the target. Where it ended may be something different, driven by various factors.

So no, I don't have a problem with you providing a Forth. What I had a problem with was your initial ambiguity regarding if you were talking about putting C applications or a C compiler on the target. In the former case, there is no reason why C applications couldn't fit on systems far smaller than what you describe. Regarding C compiler on the target, no it's not likely, but it's not a development model anyone cares about and not anything people have the desire to work towards.

Could it be done? Of course. C is a more complex language than Forth, but it isn't so complex that non-traditional techniques couldn't be used to reduce a C compiler down to an extremely small size. And while such might be done as an amusement, I doubt anyone would care. Such a tiny C (like most Forths on the target) isn't going to be generating code as efficient as could be done on a larger development system.

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Build your own Forth for Microchip PIC (Episode 837)
    ... the unreasonablly small hardware stack size for my particular target. ... You are handcuffed in the sense that you would like to be able to download small amounts of code into ram and execute it. ... because once you do away with the inner interpreter, ... An optimizing compiler isn't a post-processor, it's an *alternative* to another kind of compiler. ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: Build your own Forth for Microchip PIC (Episode 837)
    ... put those tokens in RAM. ... This is the reason I'm wanting to use the host as a remote execution ... Test/Debug code on target recompiling and reloading as necessary. ... of implementing anything other than a batch forth compiler for it. ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: Build your own Forth for Microchip PIC: Design thoughts
    ... compiler is the only task that's burning in my brain right. ... that puts PIC code on the host for the simulator to execute. ... I'm not so sure about the simulator. ... That target will execute compiled forth words. ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: forthday proceedings
    ... for target chips in colorforth and reviewed a version ... and with a target compiler and software simulator ... other OKAD application programs and the chip designs ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: Build your own Forth for Microchip PIC: Design thoughts
    ... testing words on the host, then transferring words to the target. ... where the students would be ultimately working with a cross-compiler, ... to a different compiler that will generate PIC code and download it. ...
    (comp.lang.forth)