4 ms·
Forth's niche was embedded control using small 8- and 16- bit computers with from 8 or 16 kilobytes up to 64 kilobytes of memory. Its heyday was the 1970s and
by jonjacky 3y ago
Forth's niche was embedded control using small 8- and 16- bit computers with from 8 or 16 kilobytes up to 64 kilobytes of memory. Its heyday was the 1970s and 80s when those were the largest, most powerful computers that were economical for embedded control applications. As larger, more powerful computers with more elaborate software became affordable, Forth's niche shrunk away and the language became an obscure curiosity.
In its heyday Forth delivered impressive functionality on very small systems.
You could have an interactive development system with a command interpreter, editor, assembler, compiler and the application on an 8 bit microcomputer with less, sometimes much less, than 64 kilobytes of memory.
- tombert 3y agoPlaying with it on a Commodore 64 emulator, I can kind of see the appeal. Writing equivalent programs in BASIC vs White Lightning Forth, the Forth version is substantially faster, without being that much more difficult than BASIC once you figure RPN out. I used an HP calculator in high school and use an HP emulator on my iPhone, so I'm already pretty good with RPN, so the weird syntax is coming fairly natural to me, and it's substantially easier than doing everything in raw assembly.