sectorforth

Although it requires DOS, in contrast to other tiny 16-bit x86 Forths such as MilliForth[0] and SectorForth[1], this is the smallest of such Forths that I know of. 0. https://github.com/fuzzballcat/milliForth/ 1. https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/

Have you tried looking at Sectorforth? In most languages branching is a fundamental construct, it's created here (with comments) https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/blob/master/example... Effectively IF compiles a 0= ie. If false and then a dummy target address. THEN (aka ENDIF) compiles the real target address over the dummy one, which is the address after THEN.

I highly doubt it's useful these days on general purpose computers, where even the very smallest ones can easily implement C (or better) or even run a whole operating system like Zephyr or Yocto. However if you're creating your own computer from scratch or have other artificial constraints (like it needs to fit into a boot sector[1]), and if you want to really understand precisely how your language works down to the lowest level detail while still having high-ish level constructs, then Forth is the ideal small language for that. [1] https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth

If you're looking at really from first principles, it's hard to beat forth systems. You can type in Plankforth (https://github.com/nineties/planckforth) in a hex editor ie. this can be built from zero software, by effectively morse-coding it into bare memory. In terms of accessibility though, I'd recommend Forthkit (https://github.com/tehologist/forthkit), Miniforth (https://compilercrim.es/bootstrap/), Sectorforth (https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth), Sectorlisp (https://justine.lol/sectorlisp2/) Freeforth (https://github.com/dan4thewin/FreeForth2 contains an inlining cross-compiler for MSP430) The problem with forths is that they don't seem as scalable as say lisp, from a social perspective. At a larger level, Project Oberon (https://projectoberon.net/) builds from the base CPU on FPGA, and A2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2

I think it's fine to show that you can do it, I think the main thing is to flip the order a bit. E.g. "here's a cool thing thing we can do <demonstrate the outcome of significantly changing a readable syntax>" to hook people, "here's how <show how you change syntax with higher level helpers>", "and if you really want to know how to bootstrap this from basics <here comes the linenoise>". Maybe compare how e.g. Forth is often introduced, with how people describe bootstrapping of a simplistic Forth like Jonesforth or Sectorforth [2]. Showing people how they can define their own words and it fundamentally changes how they work with the language afterwards is cool to a lot of people who have no interest in details like how you an implement even numbers with a minimal set of primitives (e.g. Sectorforth relies on that - it doesn't have builtin

Not any sources/overview as such, I just looked at the VM code. So for Mako: https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Mako/blob/master/src/MakoVM.j... Freeforth: https://github.com/dan4thewin/FreeForth2/blob/master/ff.asm Jonesforth: https://github.com/nornagon/jonesforth/blob/master/jonesfort... Stoneknife: https://github.com/kragen/stoneknifeforth/blob/master/tinybo... Retro/Ilo: http://ilo.retroforth.org/ilo.txt Sectorforth:https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/blob/master/sectorf... but see: https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/issues/6 and: https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/issues/8

I'd have a look at Freeforth (Anonymous function eval at the shell, threaded subroutines with no swap, MSP433 cross compiler) https://github.com/dan4thewin/FreeForth2/blob/master/ff.asm Sectorforth (Minimal - 7 operators, everything else is in the prelude including IF) https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/blob/master/sectorf... And Retroforth (Multi platform VM, quotations) https://github.com/crcx/retroforth/tree/master/vm For larger coding, you may need a GC, Retro has a list class, and Freeforth operates a compacting dictionary which you may be able to modify

> I'm not sure here how you differentiate minimalist from restrictive. The flexibility of the language and its syntax. The more constructs are syntactic, the less minimalistic it is, and Go is a very syntactic language. > I've always considered Go to be minimalist in terms of available tokens to the programmer: https://github.com/e3b0c442/keywords/blob/main/chart.png No language on this chart has even a passing resemblance to minimalistic. I don't think anything does when it reaches double digit keywords. For reference, I believe Smalltalk has 6. And forth is more complicated because it doesn't really have keywords at all, and barely any syntax, instead it has assembly-coded / runtime-provided words (~functions) and variables. SectorForth (https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/) is down to 8 builtin words, 2 IO words, and 5 variables (

Looking at the code, this looks remarkably similar to sectorforth? Thing is, with sectorforth and this, 2 of the primitives are not required so reducing the VM to 6ops, so you can probably go smaller. Looks as though Cesar was happy with fitting into a sector: https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/issues

Along that line.. • SectorForth - https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth - sectorforth is a 16-bit x86 Forth that fits in a 512-byte boot sector. • TetrOS - https://github.com/daniel-e/tetros - Tetris that fits into the boot sector. • BootMine - https://github.com/io12/BootMine - Bootable minesweeper game in a 512-byte boot sector • Invaders game in 512 bytes - https://github.com/nanochess/Invaders The author has written a book called Programming Boot Sector Games. > A crash course into 8086/8088 assembler programming, in an easy way with practice at each step. You will learn how to use the registers, move data, do arithmetic, and handle text and graphics. You can run these programs on any PC machine and no program exceeds 512 bytes of executable code! https://nanochess.org/store.html Examples from the book: https://github.com/nanochess

See also: - https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth - https://github.com/jart/sectorlisp

Gonna plug my own sectorforth here: https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth The linked post is really impressive. The author went way beyond what I did. I'm especially impressed by the I/O stuff.