Forth and PostScript

Forth is an extensible language developed by Chuck Moore in the late 1960s. It has since been ratified as an ANSI standard, but being an extensible language, different systems tend to vary slightly. It uses an ingenious threaded interpretive execution model which makes it well-suited to microcontroller-based embedded applications where memory is tight. Programs are written in reverse Polish notation using an explicit evaluation stack, which critics say makes it a "write-only" language. Forth has spawned many dialects, including PostScript, the widely-used page description language used by many printers.

Development tools:

	Ghostscript 7.00 A free PostScript and PDF interpreter and previewer for Windows. The source code is also available.    ¤  Apr 2001. Freeware. Home site: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
	Win32 Forth An excellent Forth implementation for Windows.    ¤  Apr 1999. Public domain. Home site: ftp://ftp.taygeta.com/pub/Forth/compilers/native/windows/
	Gnu Forth 0.3.0 An implementation of ANSI Forth with source code.    ¤  Apr 1997. Free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Home site: ftp://ftp.taygeta.com/pub/Forth/compilers/native/windows/
	Jax4th A free version of Forth for Windows with assembler source code.    ¤  Oct 1994. Free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
	Pygmy Forth 1.4 A small Forth interpreter for IBM PCs with full source code.    ¤  Jun 1993. Free for personal use. Home site: http://www.simtel.net/simtel.net/msdos/forth.html

Tutorials and FAQs:

	Forth: An Underview An overview (from below!) by Peter Knaggs.    ¤  7 May 1998. Reproduced by permission. Home site: http://dec.bournemouth.ac.uk/forth/forth.html
	A Brief Introduction to Forth Philip Koopman's paper from the second History of Programming Languages conference.    ¤  1993. Freely redistributable. Home site: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~koopman/forth/hopl.html
	The Evolution of Forth A historical perspective from Elizabeth Rather, Donald Colburn and Chuck Moore.    ¤  Jan 2000. Reproduced by permission. Home site: http://www.forth.com/Content/History/History1.htm
	A First Guide to PostScript A beginner's introductuion to the language.    ¤  Dec 1996. Freely redistributable. Home site: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/programming/postscript/postscript.html

Reference material:

	The Draft ANSI Forth Standard The final draft version of the ANSI standard for what is now Forth-96.    ¤  24 Mar 1994. Freely redistributable. Home site: ftp://ftp.taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Literature/
	The Gnu Forth Manual A reference manual which describes ANSI Forth and the Gnu implementation of it.    ¤  8 Apr 1997. Free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Home site: ftp://ftp.taygeta.com/pub/Forth/Compilers/native/windows/

External resources:

	The Forth Page The European Forth page, maintained by Peter Knaggs.
	The Forth Interest Group
	The Forth Online Resources List
	Adobe The developers of PostScript.
	Taygeta An extensive Forth website and FTP archive (the FTP archive is also mirrored at Bremen).
	Forth links at Yahoo These are also available at Yahoo UK.
	The comp.lang.forth newsgroup