File:  [gforth] / gforth / README
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Thu Dec 31 16:10:23 2009 UTC (14 years, 2 months ago) by anton
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    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 has a comprehensive
    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 and MacOS X
   12: and should not be hard to port to other systems supported by GCC. This
   13: version has been tested successfully on the following platforms:
   14: 
   15: alpha-unknown-linux-gnu 
   16:  gcc-2.95.2 19991024 (release)
   17:  gcc-2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease) 
   18:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15) 
   19:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-5) 
   20:  gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   21: armv5l-unknown-linux-gnu 
   22:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15)
   23:  broken: gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   24:            <http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=31152>
   25: i686-pc-linux-gnu 
   26:  gcc-2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease) 
   27:  gcc-3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13) 
   28:  gcc-3.4.4 20050314 (prerelease) (Debian 3.4.3-13sarge1)
   29: ia64-hp-hpux11.23 
   30:  gcc-4.1.1
   31:  broken: gcc-3.4.3
   32: powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu 
   33:  gcc-2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease) 
   34:  gcc-3.2.3 (Debian) 
   35:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15) 
   36:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-8) 
   37:  gcc-4.0.3 20060128 (prerelease) (Debian 4.0.2-8) 
   38:  gcc-4.1.3 20080623 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-23) 
   39:  gcc-4.3.2
   40: powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu 
   41:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-5) 
   42:  gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   43: sparc-sun-solaris2.10 
   44:  gcc-3.4.3 (csl-sol210-3_4-branch+sol_rpath) 
   45:  gcc-4.0.2
   46: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu 
   47:  gcc-3.3.6 (Debian 1:3.3.6-15) 
   48:  gcc-3.4.6 (Debian 3.4.6-5) 
   49:  gcc-4.0.0
   50:  gcc-4.0.4 20060904 (prerelease) (Debian 4.0.3-7) 
   51:  gcc-4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)
   52:  gcc-4.1.3 20080623 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-23) 
   53:  gcc-4.2.0
   54:  gcc-4.2.4 (Debian 4.2.4-3) 
   55:  gcc-4.3.1
   56: i386-apple-darwin9.4.0
   57: x86_64-apple-darwin9.4.0
   58: ppc-apple-darwin9.4.0
   59: i686-pc-cygwin
   60: gforth-ec: r8c, 4stack, misc, 8086
   61: 
   62: Read INSTALL for installation instructions from source, or INSTALL.DOS
   63: for DOS, Windows, and OS/2 from source, or INSTALL.BINDIST if you have
   64: a binary package distributed as .tar.gz or .zip file.  If you received
   65: a self-installing executable, just run it and follow the instructions.
   66: 
   67: To start the system, just say `gforth' (after installing it).
   68: 
   69: You can find new versions of Gforth at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gforth/
   70: and its mirrors or at
   71: 
   72: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/
   73: or
   74: ftp://ftp.complang.tuwien.ac.at/pub/forth/gforth/
   75: 
   76: The latter site also contains binary distributions of Gforth for some
   77: popular platforms.
   78: 
   79: If you want to work on Gforth, mail me. Tasks to be done can be found
   80: in ToDo; but if you would like to do something not mentioned there,
   81: it's ok, too. In any case, we would like to hear what you are
   82: doing. The most important task IMO is the foreign language interface
   83: for C.
   84: 
   85: On popular request, here are the meanings of unusual file extensions:
   86: 
   87: *.fs	Forth stream source file (include with "include <file>" from within
   88:         gforth, or start with "gforth <file1> <file2> ...")
   89: *.fi	Forth image files (start with "gforth -i <image file>")
   90: *.fb	Forth blocks file (load with "use <block file> 1 load")
   91: *.i	C include files
   92: *.ds	documenation source
   93: *TAGS	etags files
   94: 
   95: A number of Forth source files are included in this package that are
   96: not necessary for building Gforth. Not all of them are mentioned in
   97: the rest of the documentation, so here's a short overview:
   98: 
   99: Add-ons:
  100: code.fs random.fs more.fs ansi.fs colorize.fs
  101: oof.fs oofsampl.fs objects.fs blocked.fb tasker.fs
  102: 
  103: Utilities:
  104: ans-report.fs etags.fs glosgen.fs filedump.fs
  105: 
  106: Games:
  107: tt.fs sokoban.fs
  108: 
  109: Test programs (for testing Forth systems):
  110: test/*.fs
  111: 
  112: Benchmarks:
  113: bubble.fs siev.fs matrix.fs fib.fs
  114: 
  115: ANS Forth implementations of Gforth extensions:
  116: compat/*.fs
  117: 
  118: For discussions about Gforth, use the Usenet newsgroup
  119: comp.lang.forth.  If you prefer not to post on Usenet, there is also a
  120: mailing list: gforth@gnu.org.  You have to subsribe to post there.
  121: You can subscribe through
  122: <http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gforth>.  The list is archived
  123: at <http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/gforth/>.
  124: 
  125: You can also report bugs through these channels, or you can report
  126: them through our bug database:
  127: 
  128: https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=addbug&group=gforth
  129: 
  130: - anton
  131: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at
  132: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
  133: -----
  134: Copyright (C) 1995,1996,1997,1998,2000,2003,2004,2006,2007,2008,2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  135: 
  136: This file is part of Gforth.
  137: 
  138: Gforth is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  139: modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
  140: as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3
  141: of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
  142: 
  143: This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  144: but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  145: MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.#See the
  146: GNU General Public License for more details.
  147: 
  148: You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  149: along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

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