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documented threaded code variations and dynamic superinstructions
other documentation changes

    1: User-visible changes between 0.5.0 and 0.6.0:
    2: 
    3: added words: EDIT-LINE ID. .ID CONST-DOES> K-PRIOR K-NEXT K-DELETE SLURP-FILE SLURP-FID WORDLIST-WORDS
    4: 
    5: Long word names (512MB on 32-bit systems) are now supported (change to
    6:   the header format).
    7: 
    8: Generalized prims2x.fs into Vmgen (see README.vmgen etc.); used the
    9:   new capabilities in prims (e.g., automatic handling of the return
   10:   stack and instruction stream).
   11: 
   12: New threaded code execution method: primitive-centric (allows the
   13:   following), hybrid direct/indirect threaded (easier portability),
   14:   with dynamic superinstructions (typical speedup on Athlon: factor
   15:   2).  New engine gforth-itc for dealing with some
   16:   backwards-compatibility problems (see "Invoking Gforth" in the
   17:   manual).
   18: 
   19: User-visible changes between 0.4.0 and 0.5.0:
   20: 
   21: Changes in behaviour:
   22: 
   23: There are now two engines: the fast engine (gforth-fast) is at least
   24:   as fast as gforth in earlier releases; the debugging engine (gforth)
   25:   supports precise backtracing for signals (e.g., illegal memory
   26:   access), but is slower by a factor of 1-2.
   27: Block files now start at block 0 by default (instead of block 1).  If
   28:   you have block files around, prepend 1024 bytes to convert them, or
   29:   do a "1 OFFSET !" to establish the old behaviour.
   30: Gforth now does not translate newlines to LFs on reading.  Instead,
   31:   READ-LINE now interprets LF, CR, and CRLF as newlines.  Newlines on
   32:   output are in the OSs favourite format.
   33: SEE now disassembles primitives (or hex-DUMPs the code if no
   34:   disassembler is available).
   35: >HEAD (aka >NAME) now returns 0 (instead of the nt of ???) on failure.
   36: Syntax of prim changed: stack effects are now surrounded by
   37:   parentheses, tabs are insignificant.
   38: 
   39: Operating environment:
   40: 
   41: Gforth now produces a backtrace when catching an exception.
   42: On platforms supporting the Unix 98 SA_SIGINFO semantics, you get more
   43:   precise error reports for SIGSEGV and SIGFPE (e.g., "stack
   44:   underflow" instead of "Invalid memory address").
   45: Gforth now produces exit code 1 if there is an error (i.e., an
   46:   uncaught THROW) in batch processing.
   47: You can use "gforthmi --application ..." to build an image that
   48:   processes the whole command-line when invoked directly (instead of
   49:   through gforth -i).
   50: 
   51: Ports:
   52: 
   53: AIX.
   54: 20% speedup on 604e under powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu,
   55: 19%-29% speedup on Celeron with gcc-2.95.
   56: 
   57: New words:
   58: 
   59: Missing ANS Forth words: EKEY EKEY? EKEY>CHAR
   60: Timing words: CPUTIME UTIME
   61: Vector arithmetic: V* FAXPY
   62: FP comparison: F~ABS F~REL
   63: Deferred words: <IS> [IS]
   64: Nested number output: <<# #>>
   65: Exception handling: TRY RECOVER ENDTRY
   66: Directory handling: OPEN-DIR READ-DIR CLOSE-DIR FILENAME-MATCH
   67: Other: ]L PUSH-ORDER
   68: 
   69: Miscellaneous:
   70: 
   71: Significant extensions to the manual (added an introduction, among
   72:   other things), many of them due to a new team member: Neal Crook.
   73: Added assemblers and disassemblers for 386, Alpha, MIPS (thanks to
   74:   contributions by Andrew McKewan, Bernd Thallner, and Christian
   75:   Pirker).  Contributions of assemblers and disassemblers for other
   76:   architectures are welcome.
   77: 
   78: 
   79: User-visible changes between 0.3.0 and 0.4.0:
   80: 
   81: Operating environment:
   82: 
   83: Path handling: "." at the start of the path represents the directory
   84:   the nearest enclosing file resides in (if there is none: the working
   85:   directory). "~+" indicates the working directory.  The default path
   86:   now has "." in front.
   87: gforth and gforthmi is now more GNU standards compliant (wrt
   88:   command-line options).
   89: New command-line-option: --die-on-signal
   90: Errors are now directed to stderr.
   91: Stdout is now unbuffered, if it is a tty.
   92: User input device redirection (for filters) is now possible.
   93: 
   94: Ports:
   95: 
   96: Now runs on IRIX (and other MIPS-based systems without linker-flag -d).
   97: Direct threading now works on PowerPC (20% speedup on 604e).
   98: Better support for m68k (thanks to Andreas Schwab and Jorge Acereda).
   99: It is possible to create executables that contain the image (for
  100:   non-OS systems).
  101: 
  102: Added a lot of embedded control (EC) stuff. Supported controllers and
  103: small CPUs are Siemens C16x, 8086, 6502, Mixed-Mode's FPGA MISC, Bernd Paysan's
  104: 4stack processor. Not finished: ShBoom alias PSC1000, H8, AVR.
  105: 
  106: New, changed, and removed words:
  107: 
  108: Renamed F0 to FP0 (avoids unexpected behaviour in hex), added aliases
  109:   SP0, RP0, LP0 (recommended for future use) for S0, R0, L0.
  110: Renamed PARSE-WORD into SWORD (PARSE-WORD is used with the meaning of
  111:   NAME in OpenBoot and dpans6 A.6.2.2008)
  112: Added FPICK (suggested by Julian Noble).
  113: Added EXCEPTION.
  114: S" gforth" ENVIRONMENT? now produces the version-string.
  115: Changed representation of types in struct package, and correspondingly
  116:   changed names.
  117: 
  118: Miscellaneous:
  119: 
  120: Plain text documentation is now available in doc/gforth.txt.
  121: Documentation improvements.
  122: Wordlist structure changed.
  123: Added mini-oof.
  124: Reorganized files: added directories and reorganized many files into
  125:   them; renamed files into 8.3 format to work with completely broken
  126:   systems (but there are again some files that won't work there).
  127: Bug fixes.
  128: Various changes without log information only known as mega-patches.
  129: Cross compiler now also supports compilation only for undefined or forward
  130: referenced words. Plugins to support some native code generation
  131: (for PSC1000).
  132: More files in the compat library.
  133: 
  134: 
  135: 
  136: User-visible changes between 0.2.1 and 0.3.0:
  137: 
  138: Stack overflow detection by memory protection on most systems
  139: 	(allocation with mmap).
  140: gforth.fi is now fully relocatable.
  141: fully relocatable images are now easier to create.
  142: added primitives K and UNDER+.
  143: Win32 support.
  144: Improved support for embedded controllers and other deprived environments.
  145: some bug fixes.
  146: added concept index; other documentation improvements.
  147: 
  148: 
  149: 
  150: User-visible changes between 0.2.0 and 0.2.1:
  151: 
  152: Bug fixes
  153: 
  154: 
  155: 
  156: User-visible changes between 0.1beta and 0.2.0:
  157: 
  158: Portability and Installation:
  159: 
  160: Support architectures with buggy long longs (alpha-dec-osf).
  161: Better support for DOS and other non-Unix systems.
  162: Size changes through the command line are passed to the image (and
  163: saved with savesystem); the preamble specifies an interpreter and is
  164: propagated by save-system.
  165: 
  166: Tools:
  167: 
  168: Improved etags support.
  169: more.fs allows output paging.
  170: Added compat/ directory containing ANS implementations of Gforth features.
  171: Added tiny multitasker (tasker.fs).
  172: Added two alternatives for object-oriented programming: oof.fs, objects.fs.
  173: Added ans-report.fs (reports which words are used from which wordset).
  174: 
  175: New words:
  176: 
  177: Changed POPEN and PCLOSE to OPEN-PIPE and CLOSE-PIPE.
  178: Added FORM, ROWS, and COLS.
  179: added primitives EMIT-FILE, STDOUT, STDERR.
  180: Added TABLEs (case-sensitive wordlists).
  181: added POSTPONE,.
  182: Added the ability to combine arbitrary interpretation and compilation
  183: semantics (INTERPRET/COMPILE:); state-smart words were generally
  184: rewritten to use that mechanism.
  185: 
  186: Changes to existing words:
  187: 
  188: EMIT and TYPE now work through file words (and are redirectable).
  189: HEADER now stores the compilation wordlist in the header and REVEAL
  190: reveals into that wordlist.
  191: changed behaviour of SYSTEM (no longer returns wretval, but puts it in
  192: $?)  added (SYSTEM) ( c_addr u -- wretval wior ).
  193: ' and ['] now give an error for compile-only words.
  194: 
  195: 
  196: % Local Variables:
  197: % fill-prefix: "  "