3.6 KiB
VolksForth MS-DOS README
- Refactoring in progress
- Documentation for make based builds
- Previous .fb-based manual build instructions
Refactoring in progress
MSDOS VolksForth is currently in transition towards make based and stream file (.fth) based builds.
Documentation for make based builds
The central Makefile is written for GNU make on Linux and uses the DOS emulator dosbox to run VolksForth and Metacompiler binaries for building new VolksForth binaries and for running tests. The make rules also use several Linux tools, e.g. bash, Python, grep or dos2unix.
volks4th.com is the old checked-in full VolksForth binary with editor etc, manually compiled from block sources as described in the "Previous .fb-based manual build instructions". It is intended to remain untouched throughout the transition period until it can be safely replaced by new .fth-based kernels with build-in .fth interface.
Binary make targets
make v4th.com
builds the new minimal VolksForth kernel v4th.com from
.fth sources using metafile.com.
make metafile.com
builds the metacompiler with included .fth file interface.
It is used to build v4th.com, so metafile.com will be built
as part of the make rule for v4th.com. Note: metafile.com
is mostly still built from meta.fb, i.e. from block sources.
make o4th.com
builds a new minimal VolksForth kernel from kernel.fb, i.e.
from block sources. This is equivalent to the previous
"How to meta-compile a new kernel" instruction.
make v4thfile.com
adds the .fth file interface to the old volks4th binary.
Test make targets
make test
runs all current tests.
make test-min.result
runs v4th.com through the initial minimal set of unit tests.
make test-volks4th-min.result
runs the same initial minimal set of unit tests on v4thfile.com
which is the old volks4th.com binary with added .fth file interface.
Previous .fb-based manual build instructions
How to meta-compile a new kernel
After making changes the the Forth kernel source in kernel.fb,
restart volksforth.com to have a clean system and compile a new
"minimal" kernel with include kernel.fb. This will create a new
FORTH.COM executable.
creating a minimal system with a simple editor
Execute forth.com include minimal.sys to generate the file
minimal.com which contains a minimal VolksForth system with the
Retro-Forth editor
https://fossil.forth-ev.de/volksforth/wiki?name=Atari8bit-retrofortheditor
This system can be used to edit the file volksforth.sys or other
Forth source block files needed to create a full VolksForth system.
creating a full VolksForth system from the minimal kernel
Execute forth.com include volks4th.sys to create a new fully
equipped VolksForth executable volks4th.com.
creating a version of VolksForth that works with emu2
EMU2 is a nice PC Emulator that can run MS-DOS console applications as Linux/MacOS/Windows console applications. EMU2 can be found at https://github.com/dmsc/emu2
The standard Keyboard-Interface of VolksForth (BDOS) does not work
with EMU2, however it is possible to switch to the simpler BIOS
keyboard interface. For that, comment out the blocks #114 and #115
by placing \\ at the beginning of the first row of these blocks
and comment in block #116 by changing the \\ in the first row to
\. (\ is "skip to end of line" comment, while \\ is the "skip
to end of current block" commend).
The downside of this change is that the VolksForth full screen
editor does not work anymore, as the BIOS interface does not support
special keys like cursor or function keys. As a replacement, the
Retro-Forth Editor rfe.fb or some other Forth Editor can be used.