Release 2008.10.22

I've finally finished work on a new build. This has a few changes and should help me make it easier to extend Retro in the future.

• Three VMs included
• Console [curses backend]
• Framebuffer [SDL backend]
• JavaScript
• Major Bugs Fixed:
• Saving of images now works reliably on Windows
• Scrolling works properly in the console build
• Compile-time modules replaced by a new library of modules that can be loaded from the command line
• The core now reserves a smaller piece of memory for its own use (10k rather than 32k), leaving a little more room for applications
• Small improvements to the 1994 ANS FORTH layer
• Documentation has received some minor updates to formatting and a little explanation of how to load modules at the command line.

Documentation is included in PDF and ePub formats. Additional formats can be found on feedbooks.com

This release also has an updated binary package with console binaries for Linux (x86-32, x86-64, and Alpha), MacOS X (Intel), and Windows.

Release 2008.09.21

Major changes in this release

• Support for loading code from a normal text file
  This only works for console implementation
  Use ./ngaro --with filename
• Improved screen clearing
  Trying to display a negative character code clears the display.
  This allows a cleaner, more portable way of clearing the display without relying on particular escape sequences being emulated.
• Console source trees merged
• Cleanups to I/O handling in the console implementation
• Curses-backend used for console implementation by default

The most significant of these is the addition of --with to the console implementation.

The binary package will be updated within the next few days.

Release 2008.06.29

This is a minor update with the updated word class handling (so you can try code from my previous posts) and a few minor fixes and improvements to the source. I've also updated the online interpreter to use both the latest Ngaro.js and image.

Retro on Windows

Retro has been supported on Windows for a few weeks now. My access to Windows has been very limited, but I finally have a working XP install on my main development box.

I'll be revising the Windows Build Instructions later today, to help clarify a few points and point out the exact files I'm using. In addition, I've built a new installable package for Retro 10. This is a standard MSI package, so should install on XP and Vista machines without problems. It includes all necessary dependencies. I expect to replace the binary package on retroforth.org with this later this week.

Release 2008.05.10

This is a pretty small release. I've been very busy (and a bit sick), so haven't had time to do much.

• The video refresh port is now set properly after outputting a character
• Ngaro JS now supports the video refresh port
• Ngaro JS now stores the video output apart from the form output textarea
  
• Strings are now rendered after all characters are drawn to the video buffer rather than character by character
• update (enable/disable screen redraws) was added
• redraw (redraw the screen if update is on) is now in the dictionary
• Graphics module now does video updates after drawing shapes
  
• Removed the FFI from Toka.
  

As shown, most of my time has been spent in enabling proper use of the video refresh support provided by Ngaro. This allows a noticeable performance increase in bits that are text heavy (try words) by delaying renders until the output is finished. It's also helpful with graphics, allowing filled shapes to be rendered more quickly.

I also removed the FFI functionality from Toka for this release. The FFI words are not used by the cross-compiler, and serves only to slow down the build of Toka and increase the number of dependencies. (This only affects the copy of Toka included in the Retro package; the full Toka still has FFI).

Release 2008.05.03

This release primarily focuses on the build system, but does bring some minor updates to Retro, the modules, and Ngaro.

The build system:

• Refactored, now has separate functions for each step of the build system
• The clean script has been merged in
• Accepts various command line options allowing more control over the build
• Basic help (pass --help) to see
• Several bugs were fixed in fix-image
• Memory usage of fix-image was reduced
• image2js.toka is now commented
  

For the modules:

• COUNT and R@ were added to forth94 and forth83.
  

Retro:

• for / next loops have been added
  

And as finally, Ngaro:

• Added a Clear Display button.

Nothing too impressive, but the updated build script will be easier for me to maintain and extend in the future.

SVN Repo (and Trac)

Retro now has a Subversion repository at http://svn2.assembla.com/svn/retro

The repository can be browsed via Trac. Please be aware that this is primarily intended for my use, but could be useful to anyone wanting to stay current with my work.

Release 2008.04.26

From this point on, I'm going to try to do a release at the end of any week that sees improvements to the Retro codebase.

This week brings a couple of minor changes and improvements:

• Ngaro JS now included in the package
• A tool (in Toka) to build an image.js for Ngaro JS
  (This does not work properly on 64-bit systems, I'll try to fix in the next week or two)
  
• A new (remap-keys) hook has been added to allow alteration of the values returned by key before they can be processed by other words
• New whitespace module, which uses (remap-keys) to convert TAB, CR, and LF to SPACE
• retro.config renamed to extensions
  
• Minor cleanups to start organizing the modules
  

My short term plans are to finish organizing the module sources, and to put up an online tool for building a custom forth.image without requiring anything other than a web browser.