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nineties/planckforth

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Bootstrapping a Forth interpreter from hand-written tiny ELF binary. Just for fun.

10 mentions on Hacker News by 7 people: 5 stories, 5 comments · first 2021-01-13 · latest 2026-02-16

Mentions per year 10 mentions · busiest year 2021 (8)
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  1. ▲ 72
    planckforth: Bootstrapping a Forth interpreter from hand-written tiny ELF binary
    story by tosh · 2026-02-16 · 12 comments
  2. …at really from first principles, it's hard to beat forth systems. You can type in Plankforth ( https://github.com/nineties/planckforth ) in a hex editor ie. this can be built from zero software, by effectively morse-coding it into bare…
    comment by alexisread · 2025-05-06 · in The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything
  3. bootstrap.fs is a thing of beauty https://github.com/nineties/planckforth/blob/main/bootstrap.... It starts off looking like line noise (the very simple interpreter defined in hex) and gradually turns into the forth we know and love.…
    comment by nickcw · 2021-12-06 · in Show HN: PlanckForth – Bootstrapping an interpreter from handwritten 1kb binary
  4. …is a 136-byte implementation of the interpreter followed by a built-in dictionary of 888 bytes. https://github.com/nineties/planckforth/blob/main/planck.xxd The first interpreter and language is so esoteric that, for example, the Hello…
    comment by nineties · 2021-12-06 · in Show HN: PlanckForth – Bootstrapping an interpreter from handwritten 1kb binary
  5. ▲ 132
    Show HN: PlanckForth – Bootstrapping an interpreter from handwritten 1kb binary
    story by nineties · 2021-12-06 · 19 comments
  6. …is a 136-byte implementation of the interpreter followed by a built-in dictionary of 888 bytes. https://github.com/nineties/planckforth/blob/main/planck.xxd The first interpreter and language is so esoteric that, for example, the Hello…
    comment by nineties · 2021-12-06 · in Bootstrapping a Forth Interpreter from Handwritten 1KB Binary
  7. ▲ 4
    Bootstrapping a Forth Interpreter from Handwritten 1KB Binary
    story by eatonphil · 2021-12-05 · 1 comment
  8. Seems painful. I liked this approach better: https://github.com/nineties/planckforth You start with a very tiny address or bytecode interpreter, much smaller than 512 bytes. Then you load several levels of bootstrap interpreters into it…
    comment by throwaway81523 · 2021-06-12 · in Fitting a FORTH in 512 bytes
  9. ▲ 2
    PlanckForth: Bootstrapping an Interpreter from Handwritten 1KB Binary
    story by panic · 2021-01-20 · 0 comments
  10. ▲ 10
    Show HN: PlanckForth: Bootstrapping an Interpreter from Handwritten 1KB Binary
    story by nineties · 2021-01-13 · 0 comments