Forth, a stack-based programming language, was developed within the late Nineteen Sixties by Charles H. Moore. Initially designed for controlling telescopes, it quickly discovered its place in embedded programs and different functions the place effectivity and compactness have been essential. Moore sought to create a easy but highly effective language that might be simply ported throughout completely different platforms, making it extremely appropriate for low-level programming duties. Certainly one of Forth’s distinctive options is its reverse Polish notation, whereby operations are expressed in a postfix kind, making it extremely appropriate for stack manipulation.
The language gained traction within the Seventies, discovering favor amongst hobbyists and professionals alike as a result of its effectivity and portability. Its minimalistic design, with a small set of core phrases, facilitated the creation of domain-specific languages and the constructing of customized functions. In consequence, Forth was utilized in a wide range of fields, equivalent to embedded programs, real-time management, and scientific computing. Its suitability for low-level {hardware} interplay and the flexibility to put in writing concise and environment friendly code led to its utilization in quite a few functions, particularly within the realm of robotics and telecommunications.
Over time, Forth has maintained a distinct segment presence, appreciated by a devoted neighborhood of builders who worth its simplicity and direct entry to {hardware}. Right now, the language is little used, however that doesn’t imply it’s with out worth. The intense flexibility and low-level entry to {hardware} offered by Forth might make it a super platform for hacking away at fashionable microcontrollers, for instance.
And if that’s the type of factor that you’re into, then a current undertaking by GitHub consumer fuzzballcat known as milliForth could also be of curiosity to you. milliForth is an implementation of Forth that consumes solely 380 bytes of storage. That makes it sufficiently small to run this highly effective, if odd to the fashionable developer, language on the tiniest of {hardware} platforms.
Written in about 250 strains of x86 meeting language, milliForth was designed to be similar to the 512-byte sectorFORTH implementation. The modifications that scale back the scale don’t essentially make it extra usable — error dealing with was made very sparse, for instance — however they do make milliForth the smallest “actual” programming language implementation ever, in accordance with fuzzballcat.
The GitHub repository gives a quick overview of the phrases which might be out there to be used on this implementation. There’s additionally a information that describes how one can get milliForth up and working through QEMU, and a “Hey, World!” program is offered to check issues out rapidly for these that aren’t acquainted with Forth but. All the supply code, and an assembled binary, is offered for obtain below a permissive license.
Whether or not you wish to add a brand new hacking software to your repertoire, or simply poke round and have some retro-inspired enjoyable, milliForth is price testing.