FORTH

Why do some developers favour FORTH over C? Well a FORTH system can provide a tightly integrated development environment consisting of Assembler, High level language, Real Time Executive, interactive development and debug. All without any special (expensive) hardware tools for the same price as a C compiler. Most would also argue that their productivity with FORTH was higher, they were closer to the machine and their turnaround times were significantly better.

Computer Solutions have been at the front of FORTH development with our creation of the chipFORTH package. This is ideal for embedded development and versions are available for 8031, 83C552, 68332, 68HC11, 6801, Z80, 1750A, 8051, 80186, 80196, 680x0, 68HC16, 6301, Z180 and 56002.

FORTH Inc is the company set up by the inventors of the language and are still the leading supplier of FORTH tools. 

Computer Solutions are FORTH Inc's UK distributor and over the years have worked with them extensively both in the development of products and on consultancy projects. FORTH Inc's SwiftFORTH provides a full 32 bit windows implementation of FORTH for those demanding PC based applications. It includes a powerful real-time database and graphics support.

Forth Inc. originally sponsored Starting FORTH - still one of the best books on FORTH for beginners. They have recently introduced the FORTH Programmers Handbook which is available from COMSOL .

FIGUK, the UK branch of theFORTH Interest Group  is a good place to learn more about the language.

Forth Application Stories

chipFORTH in Space

chipFORTH gets your packages there faster

7000 networked chipFORTH micros

For information on FORTH based consultancy, see our projects page and for an example of a large FORTH based application, see details of our MIMIC package.