There were/are a plethora of FORTH implementations for the Atari 8-bit. I use fig-FORTH because of its simplicity, and the fact that it stays out of the way. There were other FORTHs that can under the DOS, and others which were highly optimized. FORTH does not have predefined libs, that misses the point, but many FORTHs have extra words stored on the screens on the disks they come with.
I use Altirra as my emulator, (google for it.), you'll need to get xf25.zip for the required OS roms (google again), and the fig-FORTH I am using can be acquired by googling for atari wiki, going into the FORTH section, and downloading the fig-FORTH 1.1 ... I will post my modified fig-FORTH, once I finish the disk of words I am working on and the manual.
ok thanks Fig Forth is a simple and effective implementation, I did a big more searching and came up with volksforth which works on C64 /Atari ST and XE so will have a look at that! I was quite intrigued reading the HiSoft ST Forth manual at how close to the CPU operation everything stays. I am looking forward to finding out how procedural programming works on it! I'll have a search for these 'extra disks' cheers
I learned a bit of FORTH on the Atari way back when. I loved it, but didn't get very far. A lot of it is still (apparently) burned into my memory anyway. As I was watching this, I heard "c store" and "c fetch" in my head as you were typing "C!" and "C@". :-) Cheers.
Unfortunately, the manual to the implementation of fig-FORTH I am using has been lost to the sands of time. I have had to use a combination of the fig-FORTH installation manual, and FORTH on the Atari - Learning by Using.
I think this is the manual: www.atarimania.com/documents/Exteneded_Fig_Forth_rev_2.pdf I read Fig-Forth is 2.0 even if it says 1.1 Thank you for your interactive tutorials! They are great and fun!
the simplicity of Pascal with the power of ASM, thanks for the living lesson! Will check out the rest of your series! Do you know if anything like the 'White Lightning Oasis Software (ZX & C64) Forth software was available on the Atari? Are there pre defined Libraries available? :) /|\
Nice! Regarding Forth, are you aware of a forth command which displays word definitions? I know there is a command called “words” which displays all the dictionary words, but is there a command to display the code behind each word?
I agree with Tom's comment. In the Xerox Parc days, there was an implementation of ST-76 done called TinyTalk that ran on an Intel 8086 with 64K of memory, but they took out the graphics library completely, so it was a command-line environment, and it left only 8K of program memory, "about 2-3 pages of source code," they said. So, it was only suitable for students who wanted to introduce themselves to OOP. You can find the paper on it under "TinyTalk, a Subset of Smalltalk-76 for 64KB Microcomputers." As for "Smalltalk on Ataris," though, check out Georg Heeg's demo of Smalltalk-80 on a Mega ST (through an emulator). You can find it under "Georg Heeg, Presentation & Demo - Camp Smalltalk 2019 in Charlotte, NC". I didn't know about this until several years ago, but apparently, ParcPlace sold a version for the ST, way back when!
Forth is assembler like very-fast interpreted language (but it is specific interpretation not like in BASIC), with very strong meta-programming features. You can be very close to machine and have high level language for different tasks. You also can freely use Assembler inside Forth routines, so Forth can be effective glue for assembler programm.
Amforth has an implementation for the arduino. The main strength of forth is it's simplicity, which makes easy to port it to a new platform. It's also memory efficient, so it's possible to put it into almost any microcontroller with as little as 1k ram and 8k rom. And the better part (for me at least) is that it's interactive and makes quite a good environment for experimentation and exploration of new hardware.
This is the clearest FORTH youtube I've yet found.
There were/are a plethora of FORTH implementations for the Atari 8-bit. I use fig-FORTH because of its simplicity, and the fact that it stays out of the way. There were other FORTHs that can under the DOS, and others which were highly optimized. FORTH does not have predefined libs, that misses the point, but many FORTHs have extra words stored on the screens on the disks they come with.
I am new to this language. Watched several videos about it... This is the best explanation so far.. thx 🙏
I use Altirra as my emulator, (google for it.), you'll need to get xf25.zip for the required OS roms (google again), and the fig-FORTH I am using can be acquired by googling for atari wiki, going into the FORTH section, and downloading the fig-FORTH 1.1 ... I will post my modified fig-FORTH, once I finish the disk of words I am working on and the manual.
Thanks for the useful intro to Forth!
ok thanks Fig Forth is a simple and effective implementation, I did a big more searching and came up with volksforth which works on C64 /Atari ST and XE so will have a look at that! I was quite intrigued reading the HiSoft ST Forth manual at how close to the CPU operation everything stays. I am looking forward to finding out how procedural programming works on it! I'll have a search for these 'extra disks' cheers
I learned a bit of FORTH on the Atari way back when. I loved it, but didn't get very far. A lot of it is still (apparently) burned into my memory anyway. As I was watching this, I heard "c store" and "c fetch" in my head as you were typing "C!" and "C@". :-) Cheers.
Unfortunately, the manual to the implementation of fig-FORTH I am using has been lost to the sands of time. I have had to use a combination of the fig-FORTH installation manual, and FORTH on the Atari - Learning by Using.
I think this is the manual: www.atarimania.com/documents/Exteneded_Fig_Forth_rev_2.pdf
I read Fig-Forth is 2.0 even if it says 1.1
Thank you for your interactive tutorials! They are great and fun!
Thank you, I found this very interesting as I'd never looked into Forth before. The FORGET command does seem back to front though?
the simplicity of Pascal with the power of ASM, thanks for the living lesson! Will check out the rest of your series! Do you know if anything like the 'White Lightning Oasis Software (ZX & C64) Forth software was available on the Atari? Are there pre defined Libraries available? :) /|\
Nice! Regarding Forth, are you aware of a forth command which displays word definitions? I know there is a command called “words” which displays all the dictionary words, but is there a command to display the code behind each word?
Some fig forths have a decompiler word which can be loaded in. Typically this just provides a very primitive output of words used.
Obviously you can write your own!
Thanks
I also found the Fig Forth manual available on Atarimania! /|\
Thanks, very cool
Are any tiny SmallTalk implementations exist for Atari? It would be interesting is it usable or just eat all the memory available and hung.
Way too little memory for even a Smalltalk-76 implementation. ;)
I agree with Tom's comment. In the Xerox Parc days, there was an implementation of ST-76 done called TinyTalk that ran on an Intel 8086 with 64K of memory, but they took out the graphics library completely, so it was a command-line environment, and it left only 8K of program memory, "about 2-3 pages of source code," they said. So, it was only suitable for students who wanted to introduce themselves to OOP. You can find the paper on it under "TinyTalk, a Subset of Smalltalk-76 for 64KB Microcomputers."
As for "Smalltalk on Ataris," though, check out Georg Heeg's demo of Smalltalk-80 on a Mega ST (through an emulator). You can find it under "Georg Heeg, Presentation & Demo - Camp Smalltalk 2019 in Charlotte, NC". I didn't know about this until several years ago, but apparently, ParcPlace sold a version for the ST, way back when!
I remember rewriting the plot and line drawing in forth. I blew Atari's built in routines away but they sucked anyway,
did anyone ever do a forth cartridge for the Atari 800 / 800xl?
Nope.
Shame. There are for the c64 (several), vic-20, ti-99...
CONSTANT BRIGHTRED 67
: BACKGROUND-COLOR 710 C! ;
BRIGHTRED BACKGROUND-COLOR
Factoring!
We cordially invite you to the "Atari 8-bit Programming" Discord server: discord.gg/GTapZjCsgp
Noob question here, What is the purpose FORTH? Is it used to program a microcontroller like Arduino?
Forth is assembler like very-fast interpreted language (but it is specific interpretation not like in BASIC), with very strong meta-programming features. You can be very close to machine and have high level language for different tasks. You also can freely use Assembler inside Forth routines, so Forth can be effective glue for assembler programm.
Amforth has an implementation for the arduino. The main strength of forth is it's simplicity, which makes easy to port it to a new platform. It's also memory efficient, so it's possible to put it into almost any microcontroller with as little as 1k ram and 8k rom. And the better part (for me at least) is that it's interactive and makes quite a good environment for experimentation and exploration of new hardware.
NASA use it.
I believe it hides in Apple's OS. Dunno if true or which .
Chuck Moore wrote it. There's some YT vids of him