Forth-83 Standard

[Case Computer Club]

I just had a look at the Forth-83 standard, and I was surprised at
a few things, most of them relating to the definition of tick ('):

1. Tick is no longer defined to return a pointer to the PFA,
as in Forth-79 or fig-Forth, instead, it points to the
CFA.

2. Tick has actually been divorced into two functions. The
first retains the notation (') while the other one looks
like this: ([']). The first is not immediate, as in previous
versions, and returns a pointer to the CFA of the next word
found in the input stream when it is executed. The second
is immediate, can only be compiled, and compiles the CFA of
the next word found in the input stream at compilation time
into a literal.

The end result is that much code is incompatible. It is certain
that ANY word which depends on tick will no longer work. I would like
some feedback on this. Is this a good change? Will it affect much
work? Please respond by mail. I will summarize responses on the net.

Carl Fongheiser
decvax!cwruecmp!ccc (Usenet)
ccc@Case (CSnet)
ccc%Case@Rand-relay (Internet)