mina ciforth
(ver 4.0.6)
Abandoned Freeware


mina is a MSDOS NAtive customization of ciforth.  


Forth is "the language that will help you learn more about your computer than 
any other". It is one of the fastest languages in existence, both from the point 
of view of developing as that of running the software when you have finished 
developing it. It has been used for all sorts of purposes, but it shines 
particularly in robotics applications and programs that demand direct access of 
the programmer to the machine level of the computer. (It is an excellent tool 
for learning assembly language.) Its unique structure reduces the time needed 
in the editing-compiling-running-debugging cycle drastically and partly inspired 
other languages (like Logo) and improvements in development environments for 
other languages (like Turbo Pascal and QuickBasic). 


mina ciforth -- ISO Forth Language And Environment DESCRIPTION Forth is a 
tried and proven language for evolutionary ("check as you go") programming, 
ideal for rapid prototyping and experiments with hardware. mina is the 16-bit 
MS-DOS version of ciforth (common Intel Forth), an interpreter environment, 
scripter and compiler for Forth. It supplies the CORE wordset of the ISO Forth 
standard, plus some essentials, i.a. file access and exceptions. Its power is 
multiplied by an extensive source library, that adds i.a. a decompiler and an 
integrated 86 assembler. OPTIONS mina without options starts an interactive 
system. Options are implemented by a simple mechanism through the source library, 
and hence are configurable. The most important ones are /H Print help, i.e. 
the option summary, version etc. Then exit. /E Load the electives , i.e. tools 
for interactive development. Then start the interpreter. /C FILE.FRT Compile 
FILE.FRT to the binary FILE.EXE Then exit. /A, /R Start the interpreter with 
the word REQUIRE available. DOCUMENTATION mina comes with html, ps and pdf 
documentation. Version 4.0.6 has about 9500 pdf-pages per Mbyte of executable 
code. It documents all language features implemented and has a tutorial. 
mina.html contains only the reference documentation, for easy click through. 
SOURCE The source for the compiler and the library are part of the package. 
( mina.asm and forth.lab ). DIAGNOSTICS Uncaught exceptions will show the error 
number. Positive error numbers are ciforth-specific and explained in the 
documentation. Negative error numbers are OS-specific. A mnemonic message is 
fetched from the library file and displayed, if possible. The combination 
MS-DOS plus Forth is crash-happy though. AUTHOR Copyright (c) 2000-2004 by 
Albert van der Horst http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst/ciforth.html 
ciforth is made available under the GNU Public License: quality, but NO warranty.