I’ve been around tech for a long time, and sometimes you run across an article that really makes you take a step back!
Prepare to be old with me for a moment!
Back in the 80’s when 8 bit home computers were the rage, we were an Atari family. Had an Atari 800, and later I was given an Atari 600XL, and finally an Atari 1040ST entered the house.
But what really struck me is seeing this article pop up:
This article is a lead into the attached short video about milliForth – a super tiny version of Forth for the 6502 processors of the day.
The Atari 800 and computers of that era used the 6502 processor and I’ve always been fascinated with how much could be done with so few system resources – we’ve been spoiled for decades with what’s available to us as programmers for sure.
Ok- back on track. The Atari 800 with a 6502 had at least one version of Forth for it – valForth.
This article struck me thinking back about Forth on the computer because of a game called OmniTrend’s Universe. This was a neat game about buying a ship, upgrading it, resource management, loans, and even as the wikipedia page puts it – calculating orbital mechanics to launch shuttles.
This was a cool game for 1983! But I remember seeing the source code in the valForth editor – or maybe it was just data files for the game, but it was pretty cool back then when all I had seen before was Atari BASIC.
The article is short, and I encourage you to go down the rabbit hole if you are nostalgic for that era!
A link to the milliForth repo referenced in the article.
https://github.com/agsb/milliForth-6502
A link to more about Forth on Atari computers.
https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Forth
A wikipedia article about Omnitrend’s Universe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe_(1983_video_game)
Now I just need to dig out my Atari 600XL, see if the discs still work and give it a go!