>The project's README then proceeds into lengthy detail about how to implement >Forth in C.

Seems people have/are more fun/interested implementing Forth interpreters/compilers than actually using Forth. Same with CHIP-8. It's all about making emulators.

▲

DonHopkins a day ago | parent [-]

Then you can have fun implementing Forth in Forth, with a metacompiler that compiles itself!

Here's some of Mitch Bradley's beautiful code from OpenFirmware, his Forth kernel meta-compiler written in Forth, which supports 8, 16, 32, an 64 bit, big-endian and little-endian architectures, as well as direct, indirect, and token threaded code, with or without headers, etc:

kernel.fth: https://github.com/MitchBradley/openfirmware/blob/master/for...

metacompile.fth: https://github.com/MitchBradley/openfirmware/blob/master/for...

The OpenFirmware kernel is a Forth meta-compiler, which can compile itself on any architecture, and also cross-compile for different target architectures.

It has cross-architecture extensions to FORTH (like \16 \32 comments and /n /n* generically typed words) that make it possible to write platform, word size, byte order, and threading independent code, and compile images (stripped or with headers) for embedded systems (like the OLPC boot ROMs) and new CPU architectures (like Sun's transition from 68K to SPARC), and share code with a more powerful development environments.

	▲	larsbrinkhoff 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In my mind, taking your toy Forth from implemented in C, assembler, or what have you, to metacompiled is transformative. I struggled at first, making a few abortive attempts. But when I finally did it, it was a revelation.