silkvine / muforth

A simple, indirect-threaded Forth, written in C; for target compiling; runs on Linux, BSD, OSX, and Cygwin

What is muforth?

muforth is a small, simple, fast, indirect-threaded code (ITC) Forth intended for use as a cross-compiler for microcontrollers and other embedded devices. It is written in C and its core is very portable. Because of its Forth nature, it is naturally extensible, scriptable, and customizable.

It is very well-suited to interactive coding, debugging, and exploration, and is a great tool for bringing up new hardware.

It has support - in varying degrees of completeness - for the following architectures:

• ARMv5 (originally targeting an ARM AEB-1 board running an ARM7DI processor)
• ARMv6-m (aka Cortex-M0/M0+)
• ARMv7-m (aka Cortex-M3/M4)
• AVR (Atmel)
• HC08 and HCS08 (Motorola/Freescale/NXP)
• MSP430 (TI)
• PIC18 (Microchip)
• RISC-V (initially targeting the SiFive FE310)

Why yet another Forth?

I initially wrote muforth because I wanted to try out some implementation ideas. Today there is very little that distinguishes muforth from fig-FORTH - but the differences go rather deep.

Its implementation is no longer the point. Its sole reason for existing is to be a cross/meta/target-compiler for other Forths, and their implementations are in no way tied to muforth's.

Starting points

BUILDING will tell you how to build muforth. It's stupid simple.

Sadly, there isn't a lot of documentation right now. A good place to start is to read the source. It's generally well-commented, and is intended to be read and understood. mu/startup.mu4 - which is read and executed every time muforth starts - is the heart of the system.

Look in mu/target/ to find a target that interests you. There is generally a mu/target//build.mu4 that loads the cross-build environment. Use it as an "index" to find the assembler, disassembler, meta-compiler, kernel, and other key pieces of code.

muforth.nimblemachines.com is also, finally, spreading its wings.

Above all, enjoy!