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Position Papers of the 17th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems

Annals of Computer Science and Information Systems, Volume 31

Small Footprint Embedded Systems Paradigm Based on a Novel and Scalable Implementation of FORTH

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15439/2022F275

Citation: Position Papers of the 17th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems, M. Ganzha, L. Maciaszek, M. Paprzycki, D. Ślęzak (eds). ACSIS, Vol. 31, pages 123–130 ()

Full text

Abstract. This paper describes architecture of the novel implementation of the Forth interpreter-compiler. The architecture follows the object- and component-oriented design paradigms. The implementation is done with the modern C++ 20 language taking full advantage of such constructs as lambda functions, variadic templates, as well as the coroutines and concepts. The system is highly modular and easily scales for small footprint embedded systems. We propose to extend Forth with the coroutine words that allow for async operations and lightweight cooperative multi-threading. We show successful deployment of the proposed Forth implementation on three platforms, two PC frameworks running Linux and Windows, respectively, as well as on tiny embedded system NodeMCU v3 with the 32-bit RISC ESP8266 microprocessor and 32/80KB memory. The project has also educational value, showing intrinsic operation of Forth and modern C++. Software is available free from the Internet.

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