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The FORTH code for Chipwits is released in the game's 40th anniversary

(chipwits.com)
226 points JoeDaDude | 1 comments | 21 Nov 24 18:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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tombert ◴[21 Nov 24 19:37 UTC] No.42207795[source]▶
Forth has been something I've wanted to learn for years now. It seems weird to me that for most stuff in old computers, you have the option of "assembly" if you want your program to be fast, and "BASIC" if you want your program to be slow, but Forth lingers along as the "medium speed" language, despite at least looking pretty high-level.
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1. astrobe_ ◴[22 Nov 24 13:35 UTC] No.42213720[source]▶
Old 8 bits "family/home computers" were designed with teens and kids in mind - perhaps an influence of Alan Kay? BASIC means "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code", so it was a good fit. The Amstrad CPC 6128 also came with a Logo implementation [1], which was an educational dialect of Lisp (I still remember how its associative lists blew my mind as a kid), on a separate disc.

Also, at that time "open source" wasn't really a thing, compilers/interpreters for various languages were professional, commercial tools [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_CPC#Other_languages [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists