Hi Tristan, The main problem with the portable C approach for forth is that the interpreter (ITC) consumes a lot of mcu cycles so you need assembler code at some point to compensate. With just C this problem is amplified even when optimized.
Regards, John S On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 4:25 PM John Sarabacha <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Tristan, > This is interesting, they use portable C for forth, whereas my approach is > to use portable C to deliver assembler code for forth, by creating an > abstraction layer for the mcu. This allows you to interface C routines and > keep the performance of assembly code. > > Regards, > John S > > > On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 2:15 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi John, >> >> Interesting. >> >> A different target in that of an embedded mcu, but perhaps some >> parallels with ATLAST [1]. The links in the Documentation section (of >> [1]) give an interesting history and rationale. >> >> Best wishes, >> Tristan >> >> [1] https://github.com/Fourmilab/atlast?tab=readme-ov-file >> >> >> On 2026-01-23 18:40, John Sarabacha wrote: >> > Hi Everyone, >> > For using ITC and DTC based forth code the next step is making AmForth >> > more >> > portable. >> > Any platform that supports C will be able to use amForth (as a >> > subsystem). >> > The terminology that I am using is that AmForth is the full >> > independent >> > system and amForth is a subsystem based on AmForth. >> > The 1st step is moving the primary words to a form which is more >> > portable >> > across >> > platforms using asm(...) calls with a C infrastructure. Then using this >> > as >> > a foundation for all the words. >> > >> > Regards, >> > John S >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ >> > [email protected] >> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ >> [email protected] >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel >> > _______________________________________________ Amforth-devel mailing list for http://amforth.sf.net/ [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/amforth-devel
