You need gcc version 2.0 or later to compile gforth. First, type ./configure (see Section Configuration Options below for details). After configuration, type make Now you can check whether your shiny new Forth system works. Say make test You can run some benchmarks with make bench and compare them with the results in Benchres and in the manual. If everything is all right, you may want to install gforth. Type make install You have to make an entry in the info directory file manually. For paper documentation, print gforth.ps (a Postscript file (300dpi fonts, i.e., it works, but does not produce best quality on better printers)), or say make gforth.dvi and print the resulting file gforth.dvi. You can also get the documentation in HTML format by typing make html If you prefer plain ASCII documentation, you can make doc/gforth.txt or just concatenate the files gforth.info-* ('cat gforth.info-*' under Unix); the result of the latter option is a little worse. You can find binary distributions, documentation in HTML and plain text format and information on known installation problems at http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/. Configuration Options If you use GNU make, you can build in a directory different from the source directory by changing to the build directory and invoking configure thus: $srcdir/configure where $srcdir is the source directory. (Note that we tested this only for installation; i.e., if you want to hack the Gforth sources, you should probably build in the source directory). configure has the following useful parameters: --prefix=PREFIX install architecture-independent files in PREFIX [default: /usr/local] --exec-prefix=PREFIX install architecture-dependent files in PREFIX [default: same as prefix] --enable-force-reg Use explicit register declarations if they appear in the machine.h file. This can cause a good speedup, but also incorrect code with some gcc versions on some processors (default disabled). --enable-direct-threaded Force direct threading. This may not work on some machines and may cause slowdown on others. (default processor-dependent) --enable-indirect-threaded Force indirect threading. This can cause a slowdown on some machines. (default processor-dependent) --with-debug specifies option -g to compile with debug info (default) --without-debug omits the -g switch and creates smaller images on machines where strip has problems with gcc style debugging informations. --help: tells you about other parameters. The file Benchres shows which combination of the -enable options we tried gave the best results for various machines. If you don't like the defaults for the installation directories, you should override them already during configure. E.g., if you want to install in the /gnu hierarchy instead of in the default /usr/local hierarchy, say ./configure --prefix=/gnu Moreover, if your GCC is not called gcc (but, e.g., gcc-2.7.1), you should say so during configuration. E.g.: env CC=gcc-2.7.1 ./configure You can also pass additional options to gcc in this way, e.g., if you want to generate an a.out executable under Linux with gcc-2.7.0: env "CC=gcc -b i486-linuxaout -V 2.7.0" ./configure You can change the sizes of the various areas used in the default image `gforth.fi' by passing the appropriate Gforth command line options in the FORTHSIZES environment variable: env "FORTHSIZES=--dictionary-size=256k --data-stack-size=16k --fp-stack-size=15872b --return-stack-size=15k --locals-stack-size=14848b" ./configure The line above reaffirms the default sizes. Note that the locals stack area is also used as input buffer stack. If C's "long long" do not work properly on your machine (i.e., if the tests involving double-cell numbers fail), you can build Gforth such that it does not use "long long": env ac_cv_sizeof_long_long=0 ./configure Cross-Configuration A few tests made by the configure script do not work in a cross-compilation situation. You have to provide the results of these tests by hand. E.g., if you compile for a 386 architecture processor: env ac_cv_sizeof_char_p=4 ac_cv_sizeof_short=2 ac_cv_sizeof_int=4 ac_cv_sizeof_long=4 ac_cv_sizeof_long_long=8 ac_cv_c_bigendian=no ./configure The ac_cv_sizeof_... variables give the sizes of various C types; ac_cv_sizeof_char_p is the same as "sizeof(char*)" in C code. The ac_cv_c_bigendian variable gives the byte order. Preloading installation-specific code If you want to have some installation-specific files loaded when Gforth starts (e.g., an assembler for your processor), put commands for loading them into /usr/local/share/gforth/site-forth/siteinit.fs (if the commands work for all architectures) or /usr/local/lib/gforth/site-forth/siteinit.fs (for architecture-specific commands); /usr/local/lib/gforth/site-forth/siteinit.fs takes precedence if both files are present (unless you change the search path). The file names given above are the defaults; if you have changed the prefix, you have to replace "/usr/local" in these names with your prefix. By default, the installation procedure creates an empty /usr/local/share/gforth/site-forth/siteinit.fs if there is no such file. If you change the siteinit.fs file, you should run "make install" again for the changes to take effect (Actually, the part of "make install" starting with "rm gforth.fi" is sufficient). Multiple Versions and Deinstallation Several versions of Gforth can be installed and used at the same time. Version `foo' can be invoked with `gforth-foo'. We recommend to keep the old version for some time after a new one has been installed. You can deinstall this version of Gforth with 'make uninstall' and version foo with 'make uninstall VERSION=foo'. 'make uninstall' also tells you how to uninstall Gforth completely.