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From: wmb@sun.uucp (Mitch Bradley)
Newsgroups: net.lang.forth
Subject: Re: FORTH Implementation Help - (nf)
Message-ID: <1696@sun.uucp>
Date: Thu, 20-Sep-84 11:51:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.1696
Posted: Thu Sep 20 11:51:13 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 00:44:59 EDT
References: <9100001@uiucdcsb.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 39

> A group of us are going to implement FORTH for a Z-80 in C.  None of us have
> ever seen, let alone used it.
> 
> Can anyone suggest books/articles that might help us implement FORTH?  The
> more details about implementing FORTH, the better.  Thanks in advance.

Try "Systems Guide to fig-FORTH" by Ting, "All about Forth" by Haydon,
"MVP Forth Assembly Source Code" by Haydon, and "1983 Rochester FORTH
Proceedings".  All are available from Mountain View Press, Mountain View CA
94040, (415) 961-4103.  Prices $25, $25, $20, $25, respectively.

The Rochester proceedings contains an article "The Development of a C-Based
Forth" by Peter Blaser, which you should definitely read, but it alone won't
give you nearly enough information.

NOW, let me caution you about something:  Don't expect to come up with a
useable system.  Peter Blaser's C Forth was about 3 times slower on a
VAX than an assembly-language VAX Forth, and the VAX is a pretty good
architecture for C, as opposed to Z-80 which isn't so efficient at supporting
C.

C itself is not particularly great for writing Forth systems in, because
the usual sorts of data structures that one finds in Forth kernels
are linked lists, and initialization of them at compile time or load time
is inconvenient in C.  Of course, C is probably better than most other
high-level languages in this regard, but it's still not wonderful.

If you just want something to use on a Z-80, there are a number of
excellent Forth systems available.  One of my favorites is the public-domain
F83, available for $25 from No Visible Support Software, P.O. Box 1344,
2000 Center Street, Berkeley, CA 94704.  It comes on an 8" ss/sd CP/M
format disk.  You can also get it from Simtel-20 if you have ARPANET
access.

If there is any more information you need, send me mail.

Mitch Bradley
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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