7 ms·

RetroForth 2021.1

132 points by mindcrime 6y ago

robertkeizer 6y ago
Website currently not responding. https://web.archive.org/web/20210217174411/http://forthworks.com/retro https://web.archive.org/web/20210217174411/http://forthworks...
- th3h4mm3r 6y ago
  So forthnoworksanymore. Lol.
- akalsz 6y ago
  http timeouts, but https and gopher both work for me: https://forthworks.com/retro https://forthworks.com/retro gopher://forthworks.com/1/retro
- marttt 6y ago
  There's another page by crc that links to the latest snapshot, documentation and, IMO most importantly, a directory with retroforth examples: http://forth.works/ http://forth.works/
- crc_ 6y ago
  The server limits the number of connections; this is likely the heaviest traffic it's seen; I've raised the limits a little to hopefully help with this.
williesleg 6y ago
Website built on Forth
fouc 6y ago
I first came across retroforth back in 2001 when it was originally being developed by tcn. Later crc picked up the maintenance and development of it and did a stellar job with it. Retroforth was my favorite forth in linux because it was the most accessible & usable & cross-platform forth that adhered closely to the spirit of Chuck Moore's original (pre-color) forth, rather than the ANSI standard.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Pet_Ant 6y ago
A different Forth I enjoy to hobby code puzzles in is [Factor](https://factorcode.org/ https://factorcode.org/) and is probably an easier place for people to start. Forths are wonderful languages that everyone should have some exposure to, they are like a cross of Lisp and Smalltalk. You should definitely try it at least once.
- zoltar 6y ago
  I think this tech talk on Factor offers a pretty good tour of the language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g
- jonahx 6y ago
  If my aim was just to learn, what would be the advantages and disadvantages between gforth, retroforth, and factor?
  - 7thaccount 6y ago
    I did not find gforth or factor to be very easy to get up and running with. If you want to learn forth concepts, you can build one yourself easily in any language (lots of examples), but Assembly or C are the most idiomatic as they allow you to get to a much lower level. Every forth system is different, but they share a lot of design fundamentals. There are almost too many to count. If you're okay with closed source, 8th has a very nice free version if you just want to get a hang of writing forth code in it. I usually recommend that one check out 8th as it comes with all the niceties of modern scripting languages and can cross-compile to a lot of systems, has GUI support, bluetooth, iPhone/Android, modern data structures, database support...etc. It's also a bit confusing that most Forth systems were traditionally for embedded work. There are a few commercial offerings (SwiftForth and VxForth) for that. It used to also be extremely common to bootstrap new hardware with Forth as you got a full REPL so you could interactively interact with the hardware and test out each piece before a compiler like C could be ported to the system. I'm not sure how common that is now, but there are a lot of Forth systems that are pretty barebones compared to modern languages. You have to look around.
ilaksh 6y ago
Also see RainbowForth in the browser http://rainbowforth.appspot.com/ http://rainbowforth.appspot.com/
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  Why would it need access to my Google account?
  - ilaksh 6y ago
    It shows my email in the upper right, so it is signed in to something apparently.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marttt 6y ago
  I think this is the offline version: http://rainbowforth.sourceforge.net/ http://rainbowforth.sourceforge.net/
- crc_ 6y ago
  RainbowForth is interesting, but unrelated to RetroForth.
dang 6y ago
If curious see also 2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19997008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19997008
pkaye 6y ago
Why is the only documentation in epub format?
- crc_ 6y ago
  It's not only in ePub. The canonical source for the documentation is in doc/book, with HTML formatted copies in doc/html and a Markdown copy as doc/RETRO-Book.md. The glossary of words is also included separately as a text file under the doc directory.
  - unwiredben 6y ago
    The current ePub isn't put together right, so it just has headings for the pages and no actual content. You can find the docs in the archive as Markdown files.
    - crc_ 6y ago
      I'll investigate this and get a bug fix release out ASAP.
    - crc_ 6y ago
      I've identified the issue. A correctly built copy of the ePub is at https://forthworks.com/retro/r/RETRO12-2021.1.epub https://forthworks.com/retro/r/RETRO12-2021.1.epub (replacing the broken one) and I've now issued a 2021.2 release to fix the issue that caused this.
terminalcommand 6y ago
I am wondering why the site provides linux installation instructions only for a Turkish nationalist linux distribution: Milis Linux. I haven't heard of this distribution before, but it seems it is focused on Turkish nationalists who ideolize a national operating system. The terminology they use seems also very right-wing to me.
- adam_ung 6y ago
  That’s probably the only distribution that reached out to the RetroForth maintainers.
  - crc_ 6y ago
    That is correct. I use FreeBSD and OpenBSD, the ports/packages for others are contributed by others.
codezero 6y ago
If you’re into this you may also like durex forth: https://github.com/jkotlinski/durexforth https://github.com/jkotlinski/durexforth A modern C64 variant, as well as CollapseOS which is a Forth based 8-bit OS: https://collapseos.org/ https://collapseos.org/

RetroForth 2021.1

132 points by mindcrime 6y ago

Website currently not responding. https://web.archive.org/web/20210217174411/http://forthworks.com/retro https://web.archive.org/web/20210217174411/http://forthworks...

th3h4mm3r 6y ago
So forthnoworksanymore. Lol.
akalsz 6y ago
http timeouts, but https and gopher both work for me: https://forthworks.com/retro https://forthworks.com/retro gopher://forthworks.com/1/retro
marttt 6y ago
There's another page by crc that links to the latest snapshot, documentation and, IMO most importantly, a directory with retroforth examples: http://forth.works/ http://forth.works/
crc_ 6y ago
The server limits the number of connections; this is likely the heaviest traffic it's seen; I've raised the limits a little to hopefully help with this.

williesleg 6y ago

Website built on Forth

fouc 6y ago

I first came across retroforth back in 2001 when it was originally being developed by tcn. Later crc picked up the maintenance and development of it and did a stellar job with it. Retroforth was my favorite forth in linux because it was the most accessible & usable & cross-platform forth that adhered closely to the spirit of Chuck Moore's original (pre-color) forth, rather than the ANSI standard.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Pet_Ant 6y ago

A different Forth I enjoy to hobby code puzzles in is [Factor](https://factorcode.org/ https://factorcode.org/) and is probably an easier place for people to start. Forths are wonderful languages that everyone should have some exposure to, they are like a cross of Lisp and Smalltalk. You should definitely try it at least once.

zoltar 6y ago
I think this tech talk on Factor offers a pretty good tour of the language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_0QlhYlS8g
jonahx 6y ago
If my aim was just to learn, what would be the advantages and disadvantages between gforth, retroforth, and factor?
- 7thaccount 6y ago
  I did not find gforth or factor to be very easy to get up and running with. If you want to learn forth concepts, you can build one yourself easily in any language (lots of examples), but Assembly or C are the most idiomatic as they allow you to get to a much lower level. Every forth system is different, but they share a lot of design fundamentals. There are almost too many to count. If you're okay with closed source, 8th has a very nice free version if you just want to get a hang of writing forth code in it. I usually recommend that one check out 8th as it comes with all the niceties of modern scripting languages and can cross-compile to a lot of systems, has GUI support, bluetooth, iPhone/Android, modern data structures, database support...etc. It's also a bit confusing that most Forth systems were traditionally for embedded work. There are a few commercial offerings (SwiftForth and VxForth) for that. It used to also be extremely common to bootstrap new hardware with Forth as you got a full REPL so you could interactively interact with the hardware and test out each piece before a compiler like C could be ported to the system. I'm not sure how common that is now, but there are a lot of Forth systems that are pretty barebones compared to modern languages. You have to look around.

ilaksh 6y ago

Also see RainbowForth in the browser http://rainbowforth.appspot.com/ http://rainbowforth.appspot.com/

vanderZwan 6y ago
Why would it need access to my Google account?
- ilaksh 6y ago
  It shows my email in the upper right, so it is signed in to something apparently.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marttt 6y ago
I think this is the offline version: http://rainbowforth.sourceforge.net/ http://rainbowforth.sourceforge.net/
crc_ 6y ago
RainbowForth is interesting, but unrelated to RetroForth.

dang 6y ago

If curious see also 2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19997008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19997008

pkaye 6y ago

Why is the only documentation in epub format?

crc_ 6y ago
It's not only in ePub. The canonical source for the documentation is in doc/book, with HTML formatted copies in doc/html and a Markdown copy as doc/RETRO-Book.md. The glossary of words is also included separately as a text file under the doc directory.
- unwiredben 6y ago
  The current ePub isn't put together right, so it just has headings for the pages and no actual content. You can find the docs in the archive as Markdown files.
  - crc_ 6y ago
    I'll investigate this and get a bug fix release out ASAP.
  - crc_ 6y ago
    I've identified the issue. A correctly built copy of the ePub is at https://forthworks.com/retro/r/RETRO12-2021.1.epub https://forthworks.com/retro/r/RETRO12-2021.1.epub (replacing the broken one) and I've now issued a 2021.2 release to fix the issue that caused this.

terminalcommand 6y ago

I am wondering why the site provides linux installation instructions only for a Turkish nationalist linux distribution: Milis Linux. I haven't heard of this distribution before, but it seems it is focused on Turkish nationalists who ideolize a national operating system. The terminology they use seems also very right-wing to me.

adam_ung 6y ago
That’s probably the only distribution that reached out to the RetroForth maintainers.
- crc_ 6y ago
  That is correct. I use FreeBSD and OpenBSD, the ports/packages for others are contributed by others.

codezero 6y ago

If you’re into this you may also like durex forth: https://github.com/jkotlinski/durexforth https://github.com/jkotlinski/durexforth A modern C64 variant, as well as CollapseOS which is a Forth based 8-bit OS: https://collapseos.org/ https://collapseos.org/