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From: David Hume <David.Hume@example.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: the FORTH computer language
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2015 11:35:56 +0100
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"gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> writes:

>> This seems a little unfair, because Forth wasn't just a language, it was
>> an operating system.
>
> FORTH under Windows is not an operating system

But Forth was not under Windows. And Forth on my old 8-bit computer is
an operating system.

>
>> And the words used are not instructions, although
>> they may have mapped closely to instructions in most cases.
>
> A word to swap two items on the top of the stack is very much a very 
> low-level
> assembly type instruction.

But it is not implemented in that way, it is implemented as an
interpreted call to a subroutine and then an interpreted call to get the
next word. And although the example you have given is low level, it
could equally well be higher level. For example . prints out a number to
the screen in whatever the current number base is. I am guessing there
was no instruction for that on the KDF-9.

>> And they can be typed interactively as well as in
>> programs.
>
> As in many implementations of Python and BASIC in its many incarnations. Do 
> not confuse
> a language with the language support.

I am not. But the subject line of the article is a bit ambiguous because it
says "The Forth Computer Language" so is it referring to a component of
Forth, or is it assuming that Forth is just a language and nothing else?

I checked on Chuck Moore's website and he describes it as both a
language, an interpreter, and an operating system in one paragraph.

"Abstract

"Forth is a simple, natural computer language. It has achieved remarkable
acceptance where efficiency is valued. It evolved in the 1960s on a
journey from university through business to laboratory. This is the
story of how a simple interpreter expanded its abilities to become a
complete programming language/operating system."