ColorForth Programming Language Help For Students

Introduction to ColorForth

Forth has been a recognized programming language since the 1970's. ColorForth is a redesign of this classic language for the 21st century. It also draws upon a 20-year evolution of minimal instruction-set microprocessors. Now implemented on modern PCs, it runs stand-alone without an operating system. Forth is a stack-based language invented by Charles H. Moore in the 1970s. Although designed for hardware control, interactive programming, and writing applications; it is itself somewhat esoteric compared to other mainstream languages. Its very simple syntax and operandless computational model allow it to have very compact implementations. It has inspired many other stack-based esoteric languages, such as FALSE and Befunge.

Example: Implement ANSI-Forth-style if/else/then words.:

 macro
 begin here ;
 while  ansi-if  swap ;
 repeat  branch then  ;

Contrast this with:

 : begin  here ; immediate
 : while  postpone if swap ; immediate
 : repeat postpone branch postpone then ; immediate

Compiler Download

To get started, see Download and install ColorForth and follow the instructions.