Forth

An imperative, hierarchical stack based language with an almost quasi-religious following. Like so many languages at the time FORTH was initially spelled all caps, but it had become the custom to spell it as a noun as early as the mid 70's, unlike most contemporary languages.

A list of OS/2 implementations of Forth

• C-Forth - Open Source - Discontinued.
• FIG Forth - Status unknown
• FORTH/2 - Shareware - Discontinued
• FORTH32 - Shareware - Discontinued
• LMI Forth-83 - Commercial - Discontinued - Cross development tool that runs on top of UR/FORTH.
• Portable Forth Environment - Open Source - Current
• UR/Forth - Commercial - Discontinued.

A list of DOS implementations of Forth

• Ale Forth - Freeware - Discontinued.
• BBL - Freeware - Discontinued.
• bigForth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• C-Forth - Open Source - Discontinued.
• ciforth - Open source - Current.
• ColorForth - Open source - Current.
• eForth - Open source - Sort of current .....
• FIG Forth - Open Source - Discontinued.
• F-PC - Open source - Discontinued.
• Forth Express - Commercial - Discontinued.
• Forthmacs - Commercial - Discontinued.
• FORTH32 - Shareware - Discontinued
• f83 - Open source - Discontinued.
• GForth - Open source - Discontinued.
• Golden Porcupine Forth - Shareware - Discontinued.
• HENCE4TH - Open source - Discontinued.
• hForth - Open source - Discontinued.
• Hierarchical Music Specification Language - Commercial - Discontinued.
• HS/FORTH - Commercial - Discontinued.
• LMI Forth-83 - Commercial - Discontinued - Cross development tool that runs on top of UR/FORTH.
• MiniForth - Open source - Discontinued.
• MMS Forth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• Modular Forth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• OOF - Open source - Discontinued.
• Portable Forth Environment - Open Source - Current
• PowerForth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• polyFORTH - Commercial - Discontinued.
• Pigmy Forth - Open source.
• TCOM - Freeware - Discontinued.
• ThisForth - Open source - Discontinued.
• TIMBRE - Freeware - Discontinued.
• TURBO-Forth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• UniForth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• UR/Forth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• WPForth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• Zen - Open source - Discontinued.
• 4THCMP - Freeware - Discontinued.

A list of Forth implementations that run under WinOS/2

• Forthmacs - Commercial - Discontinued.
• ProForth - Commercial - Discontinued.
• WinForth - Commercial - Discontinued.

A list of Forth implementations that run under Java

• Delta Forth - Open source - Discontinued.
• J2EE Forth - Open source - Discontinued.

A list of Forth implementations in JavaScript

• wForth - Open source - Discontinued.

Publications

• Byte Magazine August 1980 - Harks from a time when Byte used to have language specific issues, this one is the Forth issue and has a couple of now classic articles.

Tutorials and other learning material

• Starting Forth - Free tutorial in PDF format.

Links

• FIG - Forth Interest Group
• Forth resources on Taygeta.com - Outdated but extensive.

USENET

• comp.lang.forth - Surprisingly popular - Go to the Google groups version if your ISP does not offer USENET access or you are otherwise newsgroup challenged in any way.

Built with Forth

• Raidfile - A DOS in-memory database.

Standards

Most early FORTH standards were informal and based on books and articles by the original language author or on work by sundry Forth Interest Groups.

• fig-FORTH was defined by the "fig-Forth Installation Manual" for the fig-FORTH 6502 version released by FIG in 1980. Most if not all fig-FORTH compatible releases reference this document, although a few reference a later fig_FORTH for the IBM PC document.
• ANS Forth - 1994 draft - Aka ANSI Forth.

Forth history

• Invented by Charles H. Moore in 1968.