2.9 KiB
RETRO FORTH
RETRO is a modern, pragmatic Forth drawing influences from many sources. It's clean, elegant, tiny, and easy to grasp and adapt to various uses.
Features:
- Open Source (ISC License)
- Portable (runs on a MISC-style virtual machine)
- Small source & binaries
- Builds into a single, self contained binary for easy deployment
- Sources in literate format, using a Markdown variant
Quick Start
For most systems (FreeBSD, NetBSD, macOS, Linux):
make
You will need a standard C compiler and make. The ri binary
requires (n)curses, but you can ignore any build/link errors by
doing:
make -kis
If you are building an an older Linux system and are running
into problems, try using the build.sh script:
sh build.sh
Or the alternate Makefile.linux:
make -f Makefile.linux
Executables
Binaries will be placed in the bin directory.
retro
The primary executable is retro. This is used for running the
examples and the Atua (gopher) & Casket (http) servers that
power forthworks.com.
retro embeds the image into the binary, making it trivial
to copy and deploy.
The retro interface also extends the language with many new
words and vocabularies, adding scripting, file i/o, gopher, and
floating point math support.
When run without any command line arguments, this will start the listener, a basic REPL for interactive use.
retro-repl
This is a basic read-evaluate-print-loop for interactive use.
It's intended for quick tests and as an easy starting point for
new interfaces.
The retro-repl interface looks for the RETRO image (normally
ngaImage) in the current working directory. If not found,
this will use an embedded copy.
retro-ri
retro-ri is an interactive, curses based interface inspired
by the interface used around 2001 with RETRO4. It provides an
output area and then an input area at the bottom. Input is
processed as it is entered, and the top stack items appear to
the right of the input.
It's useful for playing around with new ideas and seeing how the stack works.
Commercial Versions
I provide proprietary versions of RETRO for iOS and macOS.
These use a custom, dual pane editor-based environment and
some platform specific words and extensions. They do use the
same image and virtual machine as retro, retro-repl, etc.
iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/retro-forth-12/id1170943580?ls=1&mt=8
macOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/retro-forth/id1317494014?ls=1&mt=12
The macOS application is also availble for free, though the source is not published.
Proceeds from these are used to pay for various project related expenses (servers, domains, hardware upgrades, and an occasional cup of tea).
Alternative Implementations
This source tree includes implementations in C#, JavaScript, Pascal, and Python. These are not officially supported, but are provided for your use if the C implementation will not suffice.