home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!howland.erols.net!portc.blue.aol.com.MISMATCH!portc03.blue.aol.com!portc01.blue.aol.com!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!sabik.taygeta.com!jon
- From: jdv@forth.org (J. D. Verne)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth,comp.answers,news.answers
- Subject: comp.lang.forth FAQ: Books & Periodicals (5 of 7)
- Supersedes: <forth-faq-5-960119042@forth.org>
- Followup-To: comp.lang.forth
- Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 11:43:03 GMT
- Organization: The Forth Interest Group
- Lines: 686
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU
- Expires: 08 Aug 00 11:44:02
- Message-ID: <forth-faq-5-962711042@forth.org>
- References: <forth-faq-1-962711042@forth.org>
- Reply-To: faq@forth.org (FAQ maintainers list)
- Keywords: FAQ FORTH FIG
- X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com
- Distribution: world
- Originator: jon@sabik.taygeta.com
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.lang.forth:58499 comp.answers:41433 news.answers:186962
-
- Posted-By: auto-faq 3.3 (Perl 5.004)
- Archive-name: computer-lang/forth-faq/part5
- Posting-Frequency: Monthly. A how-to-find-the-FAQ article is posted weekly.
-
- comp.lang.forth Frequently Asked Questions, part 5 of 6
- Books, Periodicals, and Tutorials
-
- Chris Jakeman, 3 Dec 1999
-
- Changes since the previous posting are marked with a "|".
- Please send your updates, comments or suggestions to me
- at cjakeman@bigfoot.com
-
- ------------------------------
-
- | Subject: Table of Contents
-
- [1] Books - Organisation
- [2] Books - Tutorial
- [3] Books - Advanced
- [4] Books - Related
- [5] Periodicals
- [6] Standards Documents
- [7] On-line - Tutorials
- [8] Other documents
- [9] Suppliers
- | [10] Libraries
- [11] Indexes
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [1] Books - Organisation
-
- There is not space here to provide an abstract to every book on Forth.
- Instead this is a guide to those items which Forth users have found
- most helpful, together with a list of other Forth books. If you have
- been especially helped by a book, please write me an abstract for it.
-
- Where publications are not widely available, a supplier is listed.
- Approximate prices are given as a guide.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [2] Books - Tutorial
-
- "Starting FORTH: an introduction to the FORTH language and operating
- system for beginners and professionals" Leo Brodie, Prentice Hall 1981
- (2nd Ed., 1987), 346 pages, ISBN 0-13-843079-9, price $29.
- An ANS version is in preparation.
-
- Chris Jakeman <cjakeman@bigfoot.com> writes:
- This is the classic introduction to Forth, with helpful cartoons,
- exercises and solutions. See also Brodie's "Thinking Forth" below.
-
- Glen Haydon writes "To try out the exercises, use MVP Forth which
- matches exactly except for ' (tick). See www.theforthsource.com."
- Forth Guide, from Mountain View Press, is a guide to MVP Forth and
- complements Starting Forth and is available on-line at
- www.theforthsource.com.
-
- The exercises have also been ported to ANS Forth by Ben Hoyt, see
- ftp.taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Applications/ANS/strtfrth.txt.
-
-
- "The Forth Programmer's Handbook" E.Conklin & E.Rather, Forth Inc.
- 1997, 228 pages ISBN 0-9662156-0-5, price $50.
-
- This book is aimed at experienced programmers new to Forth and is
- more detailed and technical than "Starting Forth". It is also a
- good reference for ANS Forth. See www.forth.com for excerpts.
-
-
- "The Forth Course" Richard Haskell, 156 pages with disk, price $25,
- supplier FIG.
-
- FIG writes:
- This set of 11 lessons is designed to make it easy for you to learn
- Forth. The material was developed over several years of teaching
- Forth as part of a senior/graduate course in desing of embedded
- software computer systems at Oakland Univeristy in Rochester,
- Michigan.
-
-
- "FORTH: A Text And Reference" Mahon Kelly and Nick Spies,
- Prentice-Hall, 1986, 487pps ISBN 0-13-326331-2 and in hardcover
- 0-13-326349-5, $19 and $25 from MMS below.
-
- Dick Miller <MMS@TheMillers.com> writes:
- Very readable, covers beginner level through relatively advanced,
- including Assembler and 8087 math co-processor details, particularly
- appropriate to IBM PC and MMSFORTH, but very strong for general use
- as well. The only college-level Forth textbook, complete with
- exercises and answers.
-
-
- "Forth Applications In Engineering And Industry" John Matthews,
- Ellis Horwood, 1989 ISBN 0-85312-659-3, price UKP35.
- Currently out of print, this book may be available from libraries.
-
- MPE Ltd. <Sales@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> writes:
- If you are starting out in the field of real-time control of hardware
- using Forth, then this book is for you! This text covers most
- aspects of real-time control under Forth, from the very basics of
- what Forth is, through to control loops and digital implementations
- of analogue filters.
-
-
- "Embedded Controller FORTH for the 8051 family" William H. Payne,
- Academic Press, 1990, 511 pages with DOS disks, ISBN 0125475705,
- price $80 book, $20 disk.
-
- J. Fulcher, Computing Reviews, 9105-0316 writes:
- ... This hobbyist-style book goes into considerable detail regarding
- the implementation of FORTH on the i8051 family of microcontrollers
- (down to circuit diagrams, PCB layouts, and wire-wrap board
- schematics) ... Almost two-thirds of this book is devoted to
- appendices -- 19 in all. These primarily contain code listings ...
-
- Paul Frenger, SIGFORTH, 2(4):31-32, 1990 reviews the book and gives
- it 10/10. Notes that the book contains everything you need: all the
- source is there as well as all the circuit diagrams. There are 19
- appendices, which make up half of the book, and contain things like:
- the source to the 8086 Forth, 8051 Forth, full screen editor code,
- 8051 disassembler code, Nautilus metacompiler, 8086/8051
- meta-assemblers, Forth decompilers and much more.
-
-
- "Forth from Inside" Viviane Beullens, on-line only, 1998, 100 pages,
- contact Viviane.Beullens@ping.be, price $30
- Intended Audience: Beginners in Forth programming
- Reasons to read it: to get started in Forth
-
-
- Paul Frenger <pfrenger@ix.netcom.com> writes:
- I just got the Forth Archive CD/ROM from MVP (see section 7) and it's great!
- Glen Haydon also has an excellent collection of Forth books and software,
- much of it seminal (ie: ancient), that FIG no longer carries or never
- carried. His "All About Forth" reference is the single most useful
- Forth-internals book I have ever seen."
-
- Other titles are:
- 93, Koller, FORTH und FORTH-Prozessoren, expert-verlag, 3-8169-0785-7
- 92, Petremann and Guillaumaud, TURBO-Forth: TFGRAF Manuel du package
- graphique pour TURBO-Forth, MP7
- 90, Zech, Forth for Professionals, Ellis Horwood, 0-13-327040-8
- 88, Anderson and Tracy, Mastering Forth
- 87, Henric-Coll, La Practique du Forth avec Hector I
- 87, Zech, Die Programmiersprache FORTH, Franzis-Verlag GmbH Muenchen,
- Recommended by Dusan Vukic <Dusan@vukic.forth-ev.de>
- and Andreas Jung <ajung@informatik.uni-rostock.de>
- It describes mainly the Fig-Forth model and goes deeply
- into details. The dialects Forth-79 and Forth-83 are also described
- in a special chapter.
- 86, TURBO-Forth: Manuel d'apprentissage, REM Corp
- 86, TURBO-Forth: Guide de rΘfΘrence, REM Corp
- 85, Bishop, Exploring Forth, Prentice-Hall, 0-246-12188-2
- 85, Burnap, Forth, The Fourth-Generation Language
- 85, McCabe, Kevin, et Axel Harvey, _Le_Forth_, 1985, Mount Royal (Quebec),
- Modulo, ISBN 2-89113-048-0; Paris (France), Belin, ISBN 2-7011-0587-0.
- 85, Olney and Benson, Fundamental Forth, Pan Books
- 85, Petremann, Zupan and Presmenil, FORTH pour CP/M & MSDOS, Loisitech
- 85, Salman, Forth, Macmillan 0-333-36798-7
- 84, Anderson, Mastering Forth, Bowie (yes, same title as Tracy above :)
- 84, Armstrong, Learning Forth
- 84, Chirlian, Beginning Forth
- 84, Lampton, Forth for Beginners
- 84, Oakley, Forth For Micros, Newnes Technical Books, 0-408-01366-4
- 84, Petremann and Rousseau, Tours de Forth, Eyrolles
- 84, Wainwright, BASIC & Forth In Parallel, Babani (Pub.), 0-85934-113-5
- 83, de Grandis-Harrison, Forth on the BBC Microcomputer, 0-907876-06-4
- 83, McCabe, Forth Fundamentals, Matrix
- 83, Petremann and Rousseau, ZX-FORTH, Eyrolles
- 83, Winfield, The Complete Forth, Sigma Technical Press, 0-905104-22-6
- 82, Hogan, Discover Forth, Osborne
- 82, Scanlon, Forth Programming, Sams
- 81, Katzan, Invitation to Forth, Petrocelli Books
- 81, Knecht, Introduction To Forth, Sams
- ??, Hendtlass, Real-Time Forth (on-line in Postscript format from
- www.forth.org at ftp://ftp.taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Literature/rtf5pps.zip
- ??, Pitman, Pocket Guide to Forth
-
-
- MVP-Forth Series
- 1 - All About Forth, '90, Haydon
- 2 - MVP Forth source listings, '83?, Haydon & Kuntz
- 3 - Integer and Floating Point, '83, Koopman
- 4 - Expert System, '84, Park
- 5 - File Management System, '84, Moreton
- 6 - Expert Tutorial, '84, Derick
- 7 - Forth Guide, '85, Haydon
- 8 - IBM Professional Application Development System, '85, Wempe
- 9 - Word Processor And Calculator, Programmers Guide, '85, Wempe
- 10 - Word Processor And Calculator, File & Print source, '85, Wempe
-
- See also the FAQ: on-line - part 2/6, for tutorials and Forth systems to
- try them on.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [3] Books - Advanced
-
- "Scientific FORTH: a modern language for scientific computing"
- Julian V. Noble, Mechum Banks Publishing, 1992, 300 pages,
- ISBN 0-9632775-0-2, price $50 incl. disk.
- (1st Ed. sold out, FIG still has a few, also Peer-To-Peer
- Communications Inc, San Jose CA at $40 without disk)
-
- Julian V. Noble <jvn@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> writes:
- While not intended for the Forth novice, Scientific FORTH contains a
- good many serious examples of Forth programming style, useful programs,
- as well as innovations intended to simplify number crunching in Forth.
- It can now be found in the libraries of several major universities
- (e.g. Yale, U. of Chicago and Rockefeller U.) and government and
- industrial laboratories (e.g. Fermilab and Motorola). It comes with a
- disk containing all the programs discussed in the book.
-
-
- "Thinking FORTH" Leo Brodie, Prentice Hall, 1984, ??? pages,
- ISBN: 0-13-917576-8 and 0-13-917568-7 (pbk.), price $20.
-
- Dick Miller <MMS@TheMillers.com> writes:
- This is a top-notch book on strategy, and always was our [MMS] top
- recommendation for the SECOND book, after you bought a textbook to
- learn the Forth words. This one teaches you which ones to select
- when, how to hone your habits for better Forth (and other)
- programming, etc. It's been unavailable for a year or two, and has
- been reprinted at last! MMS has worked to reduce its price from a
- proposed $40 (in paperback), and is pleased to offer it at $19.95.
-
-
- "Forth: The Next Step" Ron Geere, Addison-Wesley, 1986, 89 pages,
- ISBN 0-201-18050-2, price ??.
-
- Stephen J. Bevan <bevan@cs.man.ac.uk> writes:
- As the title might suggest, this is not for the complete beginner.
- It is aimed at those who have mastered the idea of reverse polish
- ... etc. and now want to do something a bit more complicated.
- Covers areas like: using double length numbers, formatting,
- reading/writing values from/to a port and `infinite' precision
- integers.
-
-
- "Object-oriented Forth - Implementation of Data Structures" Dick Pountain
- Academic Press, 1987, 108 pages, ISBN 0-12-563570-2, price $35.
-
- Chris Jakeman <cjakeman@bigfoot.com> writes:
- Pountain <diskp@bix.com> is a Byte contributing editor. His "book
- sets out to develop systematic ways of constructing complex data
- structures in Forth ... with a few easy to use syntax extensions to
- the language." Efficient techniques for records and arrays are
- presented and refined with great clarity. Objects are built from
- these by adding methods with a small change to the dictionary
- structure. The techniques are demonstrated using lists, a heap and
- a dynamic simulation of queuing at the bank.
-
-
- "Forth: The New Model - A Programmer's Handbook" Jack Woehr,
- M&T Publishing, 1992, 315 pages, ISBN: 0-13-036328-6, DOS disk included,
- price $45.
-
- Describes features of ANS Forth and how to use it to write portable
- Forth programs. Published 2 years before the Standard was approved,
- it predicts the Standard very closely. Currently the only book about
- ANS Forth.
-
- Ong Hian Leong <scornd4@solomon.technet.sg> writes:
- The author is (as at time of print) VP of Forth Interest Group and
- member of X3J14, so he presumably knows what he's talking about. 8-)
-
-
- Threading mechanisms:
- Stephen Pelc <sfp@mpeltd.demon.co.uk> says "The best analysis of the
- tradeoffs of threaded code and memory performance can be found in
- Interpretation and Instruction Path Coprocessing by Eddy H. Debaere
- and Jan M. Van Campenhout, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-04107-3"
-
- Mike Coughlin <mikc@gnu.ai.mit.edu> writes: The best article ever
- published on the subject, "Varieties of Threaded Code for Language
- Implementation" by Terry Riter and Gregory Walker, Byte Magazine,
- Sep. 1980 (not in August which was a special Forth issue) and
- reprinted by FIG along with the other Forth articles from Byte.
- Also available on the Byte CD.
-
- Also see Anton Ertl's paper at http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/
- forth/threaded-code.html
-
- Neal Crook <nealc@lsil.com> recommends "a good paper" by
- Brad Rodriguez, from a series in "The Computer Journal" at
- http://www.zetetics.com/bj/papers/moving1.htm in which he
- specifically addresses the question of choosing a threading model
- for a given processor.
-
- For some notes on token-threading, try looking at stuff related to
- Brad Eckert's Firmware Factory, at http://www.nakatsu.com/forth/
-
-
- "Designing and Programming Personal Expert Systems" Townsend, Carl,
- Feucht, Dennis, TAB Books Inc, 1986, ISBN: 0-8306-2692-1. Not in print.
-
- Contains LISP and Prolog emulations in Forth, including a unification
- algorithm. It also has some minimum distance classifier code. The
- application is fault diagnosis in locomotives.
-
- Carl Townsend & Dennis Feucht, _Designing and Programming Personal Expert
- Systems_, Tab Books, 1986.
-
-
- "eForth Implementation Guide" Dr.C.H. Ting, available from FIG, 54 pages,
- $25
-
- Dave Taliaferro <dtaliaf@Rt66.com> writes:
- This is a good book for building your own Forth system. I used this to
- port eForth to a DSP. Teaches how to build Forth from assembly macros
- and primitives. There are eForth versions for several processors.
-
-
- Other titles are:
- 90, Zech, Forth for Professionals, Ellis Horwood, 0-13-327040-8
- from Computer Literacy on 408-435-0744. includes a discussion on
- threading mechanisms.
- 87, Dr.Dobb's Toolbook of Forth, Vols I & II, M&T Publishing
- 86, Reynolds, Advanced Forth, Sigma
- 86, Terry, Library of Forth Routines and Utilities
- 85, Olney and Benson, Forth Techniques, Pan Books, 0-330-28961-6
- 85, Roberts, Forth Applications, ELCOMP Publishing, 3-88963-061-8
- 84, Feierbach, Forth Tools and Applications, Reston
- 81, Loeliger, Threaded Interpretive Languages, Byte Books, 0-07-038360-x
-
- -----------------------------
-
- Subject: [4] Books - Related
-
- "FORTH -- A Language for Interactive Computing" C.H.Moore and G.C.Leach,
- 1970
-
- This first paper to use the name "Forth" describes it as it was in 1970.
- There are surprising differences from and surprising similarities with
- modern Forth systems. Available on-line at:
- http://www.dnai.com/~jfox/F70POST.ZIP
-
-
- "The Evolution Of FORTH - An Unusual Language" C.H.Moore, Byte,
- Aug. 1980.
-
- Forth's history by its creator.
-
-
- "The Evolution of Forth" E.D.Rather, D.R.Colburn, C.H.Moore,
- ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 28, No.3 March 1993, 46 pages.
-
- An larger and more recent history of Forth by the early pioneers.
- This is also available on the Forth Inc. home page at
- http://www.forth.com
-
-
- "OpenBoot Command Reference" part no: 800-6076-11, revision A, March 1993
- and
- "Writing FCode Programs" Sun, sold by the Forth Interest Group.
- It's $50-$60.
-
-
- "Stack Computers: The New Wave" Phillip Koopman, John Wiley & Sons, 1989,
- ISBN 0-470-21467-8, price $82.
-
- Stephen J. Bevan <bevan@cs.man.ac.uk> writes:
- This isn't a book about Forth, rather it is about computers that
- potentially execute Forth very efficiently. The book contains a
- detailed overview of a number of Forth chips as well as a potted
- history of what seems to be every stack-based computer ever
- designed.
-
- Paul Frenger, SIGFORTH, 1(3):28-29, 1989 writes:
- Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who programs in
- Forth or any other high level language of whatever variety, or who
- is interested in the hardware details of Forth engines or the
- pitfalls of conventional CPU design.
-
- Stack Computers is in print from Mountain View Press, see
- http;//theforthsource.com
-
- The author <koopman@cs.cmu.edu> reports (July 96):
- My stack computer architecture book has recently gone out of print,
- but I still receive occasional inquiries as to availability. The
- former publisher, Ellis Horwood Ltd., has graciously returned the
- copyright ownership to me. So, I have decided to place the book
- on-line at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~koopman/stack_computers/index.html
-
- The book contains, among other things, case studies of seven late-80's
- stack computers. Perhaps there is renewed relevance with Java (and,
- perhaps not -- that question has already been debated at length).
- The book is still copyrighted, but is readable in its entirety from
- the above URL (see the copyright statement at that URL for details).
-
- I don't have time, and there doesn't seem to be market demand at this
- point, for a revised edition. However, if you e-mail me pointers to
- web sites that describe newer stack computer information, I will
- consider putting them in the on-line supplement as time permits.
-
-
- "More on Forth Engines" Dr.C.H.Ting, Editor
- For a description of each issue see:
- http://www.dnai.com/~jfox/offete.html
-
-
- "Write Your Own Programming Language Using C++" Norman Smith,
- Wordware Publishing, Plano, Texas. 108 pages, DOS disk included,
- ISBN 1-55622-264-5, price: $15.
-
- Norman E. Smith <smithn@orvb.saic.com> writes:
- This book presents a minimal Forth implementation called Until, for
- UNconventional Threaded Interpretive Language. Until is designed
- to be used as a macro language embedded in other applications. It
- can both call and be called by other C functions.
-
- Chris Jakeman <cjakeman@bigfoot.com> writes:
- Continued development has enhanced Until since this publication.
- For details of the latest public version, see FAQ: system - part 4/6.
-
-
- "Thinking Postscript" Glenn Reid, out-of-print but now on-line at
- http://www.rightbrain.com/pages/books.html"
-
- Olivier Lefevre <nnylfv@ny.ubs.com> writes:
- This classic book is not a cookbook but instead goes into
- the philosophy of PostScript, which has much in common with Forth.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [5] Periodicals
-
- Forth Dimensions (ISSN 0884-0822)
- Published 6 issues/year to members; Marlin Ouverson, editor
- <editor@forth.org>. Subscriptions are US$45/year,
- plus US$15/year for foreign subscriptions. Forth Interest Group,
- 100 Dolores St, Suite 183, Carmel, CA 93923 USA,
- | 831 373 6784 FAX: 831 373 2845
- | office@forth.org http://www.forth.org/fig.html
-
- Brad Rodriguez <bj@headwaters.com> writes:
- Forth Dimensions is the official publication of the Forth Interest
- Group, and is probably the foremost journal devoted exclusively to the
- Forth language. It has been in publication since 1979.
-
-
- FORML and euroForth Conference Proceedings
- Published annually by FIG at $40. FORML is an educational forum for
- sharing and discussing new or unproved proposals intended to benefit
- Forth. The first conference was held in 1980 and euroForth
- conferences began in 1992. FIG (above) publishes an index for these.
-
-
- Rochester Forth Conference
- Published annually by the Institute for Applied Research at $25 to
- $35 (depending on year).
- The conference covers all topics of Forth implementation and
- application. Conferences began in 1981.
- See http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/forth/rfc/index.html for an index.
-
-
- Does anyone have information about:
- - conferences in Australia, China etc.?
-
-
- Journal of Forth Application and Research (ISSN 0738-2022)
- Published nominally 4 issues/year;
- Institute for Applied Forth Research Inc., Box 1261, Annandale,
- VA 22003, USA.
-
- Peter Knaggs <pjk@bcs.org.uk> writes:
- JFAR is the only peer-reviewed Forth journal. It has been revived
- after a long hiatus, see
- http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/forth/jfar/index.html
-
-
- The Computer Journal
- Published 6 issues/year; Dave Baldwin, editor <dibald@netcom.com>.
- Subscriptions are US$24/year in U.S., US$34/year Canada/Mexico (air
- mail), US$44/year foreign (air mail). The Computer Journal, P.O. Box
- 3900, Citrus Heights, CA 95611-3900 USA, telephone 916-722-4970, fax
- 916-722-7480, email tcj@psyber.com, <http://www.psyber.com/~tcj>.
-
- Brad Rodriguez <bj@headwaters.com> writes:
- The Computer Journal is not a Forth magazine; it is devoted to
- "classic", small, and non-mainstream computers. It frequently carries
- articles about the Forth language.
-
-
- ACM SIGPlan Notices
- The ACM SIGPlan Notices journal has a Forth column which appears
- approximately six times a year.
- ACM, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036-5701, 212-869-7440
- Vol.31 No.4, Apr 96: "Survey of Object Oriented Forths"
- Vol.31 No.4, Apr 96: "Toward an Object Oriented Forth"
- Vol.31 No.8, Aug 96: "Thoughts on the 1996 Rochester Forth Conference"
- Vol.31 No.12, Dec 96: "A Whirlwind Tour of Forth Resources"
- Vol.32 No.2, Feb 97: "Introduction to the Beetle Forth Virtual Processor"
- Vol.32 No.4, Apr 97: "A Review of Robotics Languages"
- Vol.32 No.6, Jun 97: "Forth as a Robotics Language"
- Vol.32 No.11, Nov 97: "Venturing Forth with a Flashlight"
- Vol.33 No.2, Feb 98: "Observations on the EuroForth 97 Conference"
- Vol.33 No.3, Mar 98: "The Growing Machine, a Pre-Forth Language
- Implementation"
-
-
- Some national FIG groups publish their own periodicals, eg
- - Forthwrite (ISSN 0265-5195) (6 issues/year) from FIG UK and
- - Vierte Dimension (4 issues/year) from Forth-Gesellschaft e.V.
-
- See the FAQ: groups - part 6/6 for details.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [6] Standards Documents
-
- For details of the Forth standards see the FAQ: general - part 1/6.
-
- Published standards since 1978 are Forth 79 and Forth 83 from the Forth
- Standards Team, ANS Forth - document X3.215-1994 - by the X3J14
- Technical Committee and the Open Boot Standard.
-
- The most recent standard, ANS Forth, defines a set of core words and
- some optional extensions and takes care to allow great freedom in how
- these words are implemented. The range of hardware which can support an
- ANS Forth Standard System is wider than any previous Forth standard and
- probably wider than any programming language standard ever. The
- document includes 90 pages of annexes, providing an insight into the
- decisions which had to be taken in drafting ANS Forth.
-
- Copies of the standard cost $193 from the American National Standards
- Institute Sales Department (212) 642-4900, but the final draft of ANS
- Forth is free and available (subject to copyright restrictions) at:
- ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/x3j14/dpans94.zip (Word For Windows, v2)
- ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/minerva/x3j14/dpans94.hqx (Word For Macintosh)
- ftp://taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Literature/dpans94a.zip (plain ASCII)
-
- ANS Forth was adopted by ISO as an international standard and published
- in June 97 as ISO/IEC 15145:1997
-
-
- The Open Boot Standard defines the use of Forth to configure the
- hardware attached to a computer at startup. It is a token-threaded,
- open standard closely modelled on ANS Forth used by Sun, IBM, Motorola
- and Apple. See also section 6 below:
-
- IEEE Std 1275-1994 is recognised as an American National Standard:
- "IEEE Standard for Boot (Initialization Configuration) Firmware:
- Core Requirements and Practices, IEE Std 1275-1994, 262p,
- ISBN 1-55937-426-8, about $60 from IEEE Computer Society at
- The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Inc.
- 345 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017-2394, USA,
- voice 1-908-981-1393, fax: 1-908-981-9667, web: http://www.ieee.org,
- email stds.info@ieee.org.
-
- See also the Sun web-site to find:
- docs.sun.com All manuals from Sun
- playground.sun.com Holds the working group documents.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [7] On-line Tutorials
-
- Getting Started with Forth -- www.sunterr.demon.co.uk/guide.htm
- More a guide to getting started than a Forth tutorial, Dave Pochin
- (FIG UK) has published this guide to help you find, install and run
- your first Forth.
-
- Step-by-step instructions carry you over the pitfalls and get you
- going in the shortest possible time.
-
- The material is also packaged for easy downloading.
-
-
- Julian Noble's Forth Primer (at
- ftp://ftp.forth.org/pub/Forth/Literature/fprimer.zip)
- dates from 1992 and he has now updated it (1999) to suit Win32Forth.
- The new primer is at
- http://Landau1.phys.virginia.edu/classes/551/primer.txt
-
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [8] Other Documents
-
- CHIPS
-
- For details of the F21 chips, see
- http://pisa.rockefeller.edu:8080/MISC/F21.specs
-
-
- For the RTX2010 from Harris Semiconductor, see
- http://www.intersil.com/data/fn/fn3/fn3961/fn3961.pdf
- (Intersil bought the company)
-
- Except some slight differences in the instruction set, this document
- is applicable to the RTX2000. The processors are pin-compatible.
-
-
- OPTIMISING
-
- Bernd Paysan writes "Anton Ertl wrote a paper,
- 'RISCs Are Faster Than Stack machines', several years ago - you can
- find it on his homepage, http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/.
- He explains how to write an optimizing Forth compiler that compiles
- to code approximately as good as a good C compiler generates on the
- same machine. RAFTS is well and alive (although it currently
- generates code only for MIPS processors)."
-
-
- THREADING
-
- Peter M. Kogge, "An Architectural Trail to Threaded-Code Systems",
- IEEE Computer Journal, Mar 1982, pages 22-32 - Explains the design
- of (a classical implementation of) Forth, starting with threaded
- code, then adding the parameter stack, constants, variables,
- control structures, dictionary, outer interpreter and compiler."
-
-
- SB writes: "A most excellent discussion on all threading varieties
- by Brad Rodriquez is at http://www.zetetics.com/bj/papers/moving1.htm
- Be sure to download the Figures showing code layout for each
- threading method."
-
-
- Anton Erlt discusses the threading alternatives in
- http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/threaded-code.html
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [9] Suppliers
-
- Brad Rodriguez <bj@headwaters.com> writes:
- Most of these books and conference proceedings are available from the
- Forth Interest Group, P.O. Box 2154, Oakland, CA 94621 USA,
- | telephone 831 373 6784, fax 831 373 2845
- | office@forth.org and http://www.forth.org.
- | 1999 prices: Starting Forth $50, Thinking Forth $35, $10 p&p
-
- Other suppliers include:
- FORTH Inc. - email to forthsales@forth.com
-
- Miller Microcomputer Services (MMS) - email to MMS@TheMillers.com
- http://MMS.TheMillers.com/mmsforth.html
-
- Mountain View Press (MVP) - email to Ghaydon@theforthsource.com
- Box 429, Star Route 2 La Honda, CA 94020, voice: 415-747-0760
-
- and, in the UK,
- MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd.(MPE) - email to mpe@mpeltd.demon.co.uk
- | 1999 prices: Starting Forth ú31.50, Thinking Forth ú22, ú2 p&p
-
- Why not call them for list of their Forth publications in print?
-
- ------------------------------
-
- | Subject: [10] Libraries
- |
- | The only lending library dedicated to Forth is run by FIG UK who have
- | almost every English language publication including the Brodie books
- | and all recent material.
- |
- | Loans are free (you pay postage both ways) but you must become a
- | member. Subscriptions (1999) are ú12/year. For details including the
- | full stock list, see http://forth.org.uk.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: [11] Indexes
-
- Currently there is no single on-line index to books or published
- papers about Forth.
-
- FIG supplies a printed index of FORML and euroForml papers.
-
- http://www.amazon.com and http://www.bookshop.co.uk/SEARCH.HTM find
- 45 books but omit some important ones like Scientific Forth.
-
- Peter Knaggs maintains a growing on-line database (nearly 600 references)
- to papers from euroFORML, euroForth and Rochester conferences, also
- books and standards. Use http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/forth/search.html
- to search the database (also available as a BibTeX bibliographic file from
- http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/forth/bib/forth.bib.gz Gnu Zip (167K)
- http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/forth/bib/forth.zip PK Zip (169K))
-
- Miller Microcomputer Services maintains an on-line bibliography at
- http://MMS.TheMillers.com/mmsforth.html#BOOKS
-
-