Forth (programming language): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:56, 3 September 2024

Revision as of 12:21, 7 October 2024

Line 41:

== History ==

Forth evolved from [[Charles H. Moore]]'s personal programming system, which had been in continuous development since 1968.<ref name="evolution">{{cite book |last1=Rather |first1=Elizabeth D. |last2=Colburn |first2=Donald R. |last3=Moore |first3=Charles H. |title=History of programming languages---II |chapter=The evolution of Forth |chapter-url=http://www.forth.com/resources/evolution/index.html |editor-first=Thomas J. |editor-last=Bergin |editor2-first=Richard G. |editor2-last=Gibson |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |date=1996 |isbn=0201895021 |pages=625–670 |doi=10.1145/234286.1057832 |orig-year=1993}}</ref><ref name="WYK4Z">{{Cite web |last=Moore |first=Charles H. |year=1991 |url=http://www.colorforth.com/HOPL.html |title=Forth - The Early Years |access-date=2006-06-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060615025259/http://www.colorforth.com/HOPL.html |archive-date=2006-06-15}}</ref> Forth was first exposed to other programmers in the early 1970s, starting with [[Elizabeth Rather]] at the United States [[National Radio Astronomy Observatory]] (NRAO).<ref name="evolution" /> After their work at NRAO, Charles Moore and Elizabeth Rather formed FORTH, Inc. in 1973, refining and porting Forth systems to dozens of other platforms in the next decade.

Moore saw Forth as a successor to compile-link-go [[third-generation programming language]]s, or software for "fourth generation" hardware. He recalls how the name was coined:<ref>{{Cite web |last=Moore|first=Charles H.|date=August 1980|journal=BYTE Magazine|volume=5|issue=8|pages=82|url=https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1980-08/page/n77/mode/2up |title=The Evolution of FORTH, an Unusual Language}}</ref>

Forth is so-named, because in 1968 "the file holding the interpreter was labeled FOURTH, for 4th (next) generation software, but the [[IBM 1130]] operating system restricted file names to five characters."<ref name="WYK4Z">{{Cite web |last=Moore |first=Charles H |year=1991 |url=http://www.colorforth.com/HOPL.html |title=Forth - The Early Years |access-date=2006-06-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060615025259/http://www.colorforth.com/HOPL.html |archive-date=2006-06-15}}</ref> Moore saw Forth as a successor to compile-link-go [[third-generation programming language]]s, or software for "fourth generation" hardware.

{{quote|At [[Mohawk Industries|Mohasco]] ["in the late 1960s"] I also worked directly on an [[IBM 1130]] interfaced with an [[IBM 2250]] graphics display. The 1130 was a very important computer: it had the first cartridge disk, as well as a card reader, a card punch (as backup for the disk), and a console typewriter. The 1130 let the programmer, for the first time, totally control the computer interactively.}}

{{quote|FORTH first appeared as an entity on that 1130. It was called F-O-R-T-H, a five-letter abbreviation of FOURTH, standing for fourth-generation computer language. That was the day, you may remember, of third-generation computers and I was going to leapfrog. But because FORTH ran on the 1130 (which permitted only five-character identifiers), the name was shortened.}}

FORTH, Inc.'s microFORTH was developed for the [[Intel 8080]], [[Motorola 6800]], [[Zilog Z80]], and [[RCA 1802]] microprocessors, starting in 1976. MicroFORTH was later used by hobbyists to generate Forth systems for other architectures, such as the [[MOS Technology 6502|6502]] in 1978. The Forth Interest Group was formed in 1978.<ref>{{cite web |title=ANS 1994 Specification, Annex C ("Perspective") |url=https://www.taygeta.com/forth/dpansc.htm |website=taygeta.com}}</ref> It promoted and distributed its own version of the language, FIG-Forth, for most makes of home computer.