mikpa@majestix.liu.se (Mikael Patel) (04/03/89)
Hi, I looking for a few seriour Forth (C and Unix) programmers who would like to beta test a C based Forth-83 programming environment I have been working on. The implementation is called XFORTH and contains a number of extensions to the required standard. Written in C the kernel is a nice vehicle for development of C-programs as primitive are and may be programmed in C. Currently the implementation runs on SUNs (3, 4 and 386 have been tested out) and contains a number of definitions for access of the basic graphics in Sunview, i.e., Pixrect functions. The extensions to the Forth-83 Standard requirments are; 1. Compiler abstraction 2. Memory (C memory allocation) 3. String (C null ended strings) 4. Argument binding and local variables 5. Multi-tasking (light weight processes) and queue management 6. Exception handling 7. Library source code loading The programming environment consists of a GNU Emacs Forth Mode which supports automatic program indentation (pretty printing), documentation search, and interaction with XFORTH (running as a sub-process to Emacs). Thus giving an interactive and incremental environment for program development. XFORTH compiles approx. 50.000 lines per minute on a SUN-3/60 without local disk. XFORTH is also supported by a source code library for making programming in Forth somewhat easier. It consists of a number of tools for data declaration, traditional data types such as linked lists, vectors, stacks, etc, and a number of tools for debugging and profiling. The system consists currently of approx. 300K byte source text and documentation. XFORTH does not implement block style of input thus text files are used for source files. As XFORTH is a 32-bit implementation of the Forth 83 standard a number of double and mixed width stack words are not implemented or do not follow the standard. I am only looking for a small group of serious Forth programmers to try XFORTH out as I do not have much time for support right now (Ongoing thesis work). I will only mail a copy of the system to the first ten. May the FORTH be with you... Mikael R.K. Patel Researcher and Lecturer Computer Aided Design Laboratory Department of Computer and Information Science Linkoping University S-581 83 LINKOPING SWEDEN Phone: +46 13281821 Email: mip@ida.liu.se
LEFF@PITTVMS.BITNET (04/05/89)
I would like to help test this program if it will commpile and run on a VAX/Unix system. Louis Leff LEFF@PITTVMS leff@vm2.cis.pittsburgh.edu