PIC Micro Controller FORTH Languages

updated 2003-12-18

Forth.org has many Forth implementations available for download. At ftp://ftp.forth.org/pub/Forth/Compilers/cross/PIC/ today I see "f2pic" (without any documentation ?), "a Public Domain version of RAM Technology Systems IRTC", and "mary 1.0a50",

• http://www.ram-tech.co.uk/ IRTC: Interactive Remote Target Compiler "The 'words' are subroutines that use the 8 deep stack of the PIC and the compiler keeps track of the stack use to warn of wrap over." "The PIC is programmed incrementally ... test routines may be written that run on the PC but serve @ and ! commands to the PIC to exercise your project hardware."
• http://mary.pepix.net/ /* was http://www.pepix.net/proyectos/glazz/mary/ */ mary is an optimizing native code Forth compiler for Microchip PIC microcontrollers. available under GPL. mary requires an ANS Forth system whose cell width is at least 16 bits (tested using gforth 0.4.0 on a Linux) bugs: not interactive.
• http://www.rfc1149.net/devel/picforth PicForth, a Forth compiler for PIC 16F87x. available under the GPL. hosted on Unix (or Linux) or Windows (with Cygwin). Includes a full in-line PIC assembler and disassembler. (thanks for pointing this out, sam at rfc1149.net ) [The documentation asks "Why not use Mary?" but doesn't really give an answer. ] bugs: not interactive.

  Al Williams of AWC Says: "I have a tutorial on the rfc1149 Forth at http://tutor.al-williams.com"

  PicForth now has a wiki: http://wiki.enst.fr/bin/view/Picforth

Forth for desktop computers@

David A Cary asks:

I think it would be really cool to develop Forth programs on a PIC using a Palm. In other words, on the beach, far from any electric outlets ...
Most of the pieces are here at "Using a Palm Pilot with a PIC BootLoader" by Monty Goodson http://www.portlandrobotics.org/robots/palm-pic/palm_pic.html . Has anyone been able to put them all together ?

(see http://wiki.enst.fr/bin/view/Picforth/BootLoader )

Questions:

• moon_valley@vom.com asks:

  The PIC 16F87x Forth looks nice.
  Has anyone ported this to the 18F series yet?
  
  I would like to use the 18F6585
  I have a Forth metacompiler that I ported from the 6800 & CP/M to the M68HC11F1 and MacForth, some years ago.
  
  Mike Miller
  WB6TMH
  

David A Cary Says:

Several Forths for Microchip PICs are listed at http://forthfreak.net/index.cgi?PicForth, including 2 Forths for the Microchip PIC 18F series.

Interested: