Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell!pacbell.com!ucsd!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb
From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Non-traditional Forth systems
Message-ID: <9009071346.AA04205@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 7 Sep 90 08:12:50 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: Mitch Bradley <wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 39

Here is an "off the top of my head" list of Forth systems that are
not traditional in the usual "indirect-threaded, absolutely addressed,
combined header/cfa/pfa dictionary organization" sense:


Mac Forth - probably the largest-selling Forth for the Macintosh.
   Was trap-threaded, now direct-threaded I think.  Vendor claims >10K
   users (maybe substantially more; all I remember is that it was in
   the 10's of thousands).

Mach 2 - probably the #2 commercial Forth for the Macintosh.
   jsr-threaded with inline expansion and code optimization

JForth - the most popular Forth for the Amiga I think.  jsr-threaded
   with inline expansion and code optimization

F-PC - a leading PD Forth for the PC.  Segmented, with separate code,
   headers, and threads segments.

4xForth - commercial Forth for Atari ST.  jsr-threaded with inline expansion

Forthmacs - shareware Forth for Atari ST.  Direct-threaded

Open Boot Forth, (shipped with Sun SPARCstation firmware) - offset threaded.
   >100K units shipped.

Forth systems for Novix and Harris Forth chips - most compile to microcode.


Note that many of these systems have appeared in the last 5 years.
_Forth: A Text and Reference_ (an excellent book; I recommend it heartily)
was published in 1986, so one might not be surprised if, at that time
that it was written, the authors were unaware of the increasing popularity
of "non-traditional" implementation techniques.

"Traditional" Forth implementations remain popular and important, but
these other systems and their users are important too.

Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM