File:  [gforth] / gforth / README
Revision 1.59: download - view: text, annotated - select for diffs
Tue Jan 13 16:00:55 2004 UTC (20 years, 2 months ago) by anton
Branches: MAIN
CVS tags: HEAD
documentation change
SEE bugfixes
made (COMPILE) barf

    1: Gforth is a fast and portable implementation of the ANS Forth
    2: language. It works nicely with the Emacs editor, offers some nice
    3: features such as input completion and history, backtraces, a
    4: decompiler and a powerful locals facility, and it even has a
    5: manual. Gforth combines traditional implementation techniques with
    6: newer techniques for portability and performance: its inner
    7: interpreter is direct threaded with several optimizations, but you can
    8: also use a traditional-style indirect threaded interpreter.  Gforth is
    9: distributed under the GNU General Public license (see COPYING).
   10: 
   11: Gforth runs under GNU, BSD, and similar systems, MS Windows, MacOS X,
   12: OS/2, and DOS and should not be hard to port to other systems
   13: supported by GCC. This version has been tested successfully on the
   14: following platforms:
   15: 
   16:  alpha-dec-osf4.0d
   17:  alpha-unknown-linux-gnu
   18:  alphapca56-unknown-linux-gnu
   19:  hppa1.1-unknown-linux-gnu
   20:  hppa2.0n-hp-hpux11.00
   21:  hppa2.0w-hp-hpux11.11
   22:  i386-unknown-freebsd5.1
   23:  i686-pc-cygwin
   24:  i686-pc-linux-gnu
   25:  mips-sgi-irix6.5
   26:  mipsel-pc-linux-gnu
   27:  powerpc-apple-darwin5.4
   28:  powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu
   29:  sparc-sun-sunos4.1.4
   30:  sparc-unknown-linux-gnu
   31: 
   32: Read INSTALL for installation instructions from source, or INSTALL.DOS
   33: for DOS, Windows, and OS/2 from source, or INSTALL.BINDIST if you have
   34: a binary package distributed as .tar.gz or .zip file.  If you received
   35: a self-installing executable, just run it and follow the instructions.
   36: 
   37: To start the system, just say `gforth' (after installing it).
   38: 
   39: You can find new versions of Gforth at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gforth/
   40: and its mirrors or at
   41: 
   42: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/
   43: or
   44: ftp://ftp.complang.tuwien.ac.at/pub/forth/gforth/
   45: 
   46: The latter site also contains binary distributions of Gforth for some
   47: popular platforms.
   48: 
   49: If you want to work on Gforth, mail me. Tasks to be done can be found
   50: in ToDo; but if you would like to do something not mentioned there,
   51: it's ok, too. In any case, we would like to hear what you are
   52: doing. The most important tasks IMO are the missing ANS Forth words,
   53: the documentation and the foreign language interface for C.
   54: 
   55: On popular request, here are the meanings of unusual file extensions:
   56: 
   57: *.fs	Forth stream source file (include with "include <file>" from within
   58:         gforth, or start with "gforth <file1> <file2> ...")
   59: *.fi	Forth image files (start with "gforth -i <image file>")
   60: *.fb	Forth blocks file (load with "use <block file> 1 load")
   61: *.i	C include files
   62: *.ds	documenation source
   63: *TAGS	etags files
   64: 
   65: A number of Forth source files are included in this package that are
   66: not necessary for building Gforth. Not all of them are mentioned in
   67: the rest of the documentation, so here's a short overview:
   68: 
   69: Add-ons:
   70: code.fs random.fs more.fs ansi.fs colorize.fs
   71: oof.fs oofsampl.fs objects.fs blocked.fb tasker.fs
   72: 
   73: Utilities:
   74: ans-report.fs etags.fs glosgen.fs filedump.fs
   75: 
   76: Games:
   77: tt.fs sokoban.fs
   78: 
   79: Test programs (for testing Forth systems):
   80: test/*.fs
   81: 
   82: Benchmarks:
   83: bubble.fs siev.fs matrix.fs fib.fs
   84: 
   85: ANS Forth implementations of Gforth extensions:
   86: compat/*.fs other.fs
   87: 
   88: For discussions about Gforth, use the Usenet newsgroup
   89: comp.lang.forth.  If you prefer not to post on Usenet, there is also a
   90: mailing list: GForth@ChaosSolutions.org.  To subscribe, send a mail to
   91: gforth-subscribe@chaossolutions.org@ChaosSolutions.org with:
   92: 
   93: subscribe GForth
   94: 
   95: as the first and only line within the message body.  Submit bug
   96: reports through
   97: 
   98: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=addbug&group=gforth
   99: 
  100: (whether you post them or not).
  101: 
  102: - anton
  103: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at
  104: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
  105: -----
  106: Copyright (C) 1995,1996,1997,1998,2000,2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  107: 
  108: This file is part of Gforth.
  109: 
  110: Gforth is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  111: modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
  112: as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
  113: of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
  114: 
  115: This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  116: but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  117: MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.#See the
  118: GNU General Public License for more details.
  119: 
  120: You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  121: along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  122: Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.

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