One point I have just noticed is that trailing spaces are not removed; thus even the smallest program takes up 1k and if you have 16 small program fragments each in their own block it will take up 16k which is not good on tape systems that this is aimed at!

There is a Turbo Pack Tape extension which compresses the saved bytes on the fly   (and higher baud rate also can be used)

...some may think that eg 4 and 5 should be handled this way as well

It's FORTH so they can if they want to  (will require use of assembler if it is to be exactly the same)

Lacika wrote prime search program for comparing BASIC and FORTH speed.

Hi together,

I like Forth for a long time ago now, not so experienced but try my very best. This year I met a guy from the VCFe at HNF in Paderborn and we started three benchmarks on my old Sinclair QL at the very beginning of the site below. So yesterday it was time to reprogram the tests in IS-Forth and send him the results.

Enterprise 128 - Ultimate Forth Benchmark (must rolled down a bit)

Don't take a look at the results over the Ent Thanks to Zozo about his examination to work with "BUFFERS ON " File.4TH" NAME. It's much more easier than working with the 1k-Blocks!

Greetings, Carsten

ExcaliburGER's machine at the Classic Computing exhibition
(Attachment Link)

Enterprise monitor, Enterprise printer... Hmmmmm...

Time to get this thread back to the active ones I've tried myself in finding an algorythm to draw the Sierpinski triangle. In a modern BASIC it's not really a problem, because the parameter variables are stored automatically and restored at procedures/functions end. Because it was a nice skill exercise, I ported it to IS-FORTH. Takes me hours of lifetime

But to the history, found this original tweet at Twitter on an ORIC. So, let the work begin. And here is my IS-Forth result - first time I ever used the word RECURSE. And to see how fast the ARM processor is... on an Acorn 3020.

Maybe the program can be more compact, my FORTH skills are really at beginners level. And it wasn't so easy for me to deal with four stack values at the same time. But I want to avoid variables, there is no "stackable" variant of them
I want to share it with you, so here is the listing for a first view:
( Drawing Sierpinsky triangle )

: TRIANGLE ( X Y L S -- )
  2SWAP 2DUP MOVE ( STARTPOINT )
  2SWAP SWAP DUP
  0 > IF
    SWAP 2SWAP 2DUP
    4 PICK + DRAW
    2DUP SWAP 4 PICK + SWAP DRAW
    2DUP DRAW 2SWAP
    2 / SWAP 1 - SWAP
    ( SHOULD BE X Y L-1 S/2 )
    3 PICK 3 PICK 3 PICK 3 PICK
    RECURSE
    3 PICK 1 PICK + 3 PICK 3 PICK 3 PICK
    RECURSE
    3 PICK 3 PICK 2 PICK + 3 PICK 3 PICK
    RECURSE
    2SWAP SWAP
  THEN
  2DROP 2DROP ;

As attachment it is added as a FORTH editor file, which you can put into file system in EP128emu (Set working directory). And then use
BUFFERS ON " triangle.4th" NAME
LOAD-BUFFERS 1 LOAD
-- Switch to HIRES graphic mode
4 HIRES
-- to run it after loading
0 0 6 700 TRIANGLE

Before you start it, you have to switch the graphics mode. I have corrected that 2 minutes later in the post and did not thought, that someone is such incredible fast
4 HIRES
-- after that - only 4 lines at the bottom for input
0 0 6 700 TRIANGLE
Hope it helps

How to compile FORTH program? So make it executable?

Hi, I try to answer your question from my basic FORTH understanding at all. Most of the FORTH systems can't make an executable out of a given source code, because they need their inner core. Maybe there is a way to do this in IS-FORTH, but I haven't found anything about it in the manual yet.

That's because of how the kernel works. FORTH is an interpreter when you type in space separated words or numbers. They are looked up inside a dictionary with their name resulting in an address for executing this single word or a number is stacked. When you type in a declaration (starting with : ) - defining a new word - the system looks up all the addresses inside the new declaration and compiles them (the bunch of sub word addresses) to a new executable block and adds a dictionary entry with the start address.

I know, that's a very simplified view and description. For a deeper understanding of the language the FORTH-bible "Starting FORTH" by Leo Brodie explains it much better than I can. The book gives a good background from start to deeper knowledge. It is nowadays freely available, take a look here. IS-FORTH implements a huge kind of words of the inner core, so it's a good starting point. Some specialities about graphics you have to lookup in it's documentation.