Last updated: 22 October 2014

There has been a resurgence of books about Forth. Many of these are electronic publications which can be freely downloaded. If you find more that you can recommend, please let us know.

Available in paper form

We found all the books again after the office refurb!

Please allow for shipping costs when ordering. "Forth Programmer's Handbook" and "Forth Application Techniques" are available at low cost until stocks are exhausted.





Current books

These books are relevant to current Forth systems and applications. They follow current practice and standards.

Forth Lite Tutorial - Juergen Pintaske

A Forth Tutorial based around the free MPE VFX Forth. The code will also work on nearly all modern Forths that adhere to the ANS and/or Forth200x standards. The material is derived from a tutorial by Leo Wong.

Learning by Doing.

The best way to learn the computer language Forth is to try it out.

As is is interactive, you see the results immediatly. You'll find the questions and the answers in the eBook. You can also download the MPE Forth Compiler software, try out the examples - and then design and try your own examples.

Available as an eBook (Kindle edition) from Amazon.

Programming Forth - Stephen Pelc et al

ISBN 978-0-9525310-5-0

After the release of the ANS Forth Standard in 1994, we revised MPE's in-house course notes. In 2003 and 2004, we revised them again. Finally, with input from other people in the Forth community, we wrote this book about using modern Forth systems. It is based on the ANS Forth standard, and starting from some knowledge of programming, takes you from your first steps in Forth to advanced techniques not covered in other books.

Programming Forth includes a chapter discussing the MPE code layout standard, how it came about and how it evolves. This chapter replaces the document previously published as the MPE code layout standard.

The May 2011 release version is available for free download in PDF format (about 800 kb). Please send feedback to Stephen Pelc

I just wanted to thank you for writing Programming Forth. My assistant-in-training is chastising me for not finding it sooner - it's the best primer I've been able to find on the web. Really helpful and well-written.

Printed books are also available.

Forth Programmer's Handbook - Conklin & Rather

A second level book well regarded by many. Get it from Amazon.

Forth Application Techniques - Rather

"From first-day Forth exercises to advanced techniques many programmers never learn on their own, this course notebook is filled with pithy, succinct discussion and exercises developed and refined over the years to quickly teach, test, and reinforce Forth language skills."

Get it from Amazon.

Introducción a Forth - F.J. Gil Chica

A PDF book about Forth, freely available at http://www.disc.ua.es/~gil/forth.pdf. As far as I know, there's no other book about Forth in Spanish.

Historical

These books cover Forth's history, but are not suitable for learning current systems.

Stack Computers: the new wave - Philip Koopman, Jr.

Published in 1989, this was the first book to explore the breed of stack computers led by the introduction of the Novix NC4016 chip. The author starts with an overview of how stacks are used in computing, and a taxonomy of hardware stack support which includes a survey of approximately 70 stack machines past and present. Detailed descriptions, including block diagrams and instruction set summaries, are given for seven new stack processors from Harris Semiconductor, Novix, Johns Hopkins University/APL, MISC, WISC Technologies, and Wright State University. Major topics covered also include architectural analysis of stack machines, software issues, application areas, and potential for future development.

Available from: here.

Real Time Forth - Tim Hendtlass

Although the examples are sadly based on a 16 bit DOS Forth, this book is the best presentation available of significant issues and examples for programming real-time systems in Forth. Available from the Taygeta FTP site.

Cellular Automata Machines - Toffoli and Margolus

Cellular automata machines with the size, speed, and flexibility for general experimentation at a moderate cost have become available to the scientific community. These machines provide a laboratory in which the ideas presented in this book can be tested and applied to the synthesis of a great variety of systems. Computer scientists and researchers interested in modeling and simulation as well as other scientists who do mathematical modeling will find this introduction to cellular automata and cellular automata machines (CAM) both useful and timely.

One of Roelf's favourites. As far as he knows this is the only book about an application written in Forth, and how to use it (in Forth).

Available from MIT Press.

Starting Forth - Leo Brodie

Sadly out of print, but if you find a copy, especially of the second edition, buy it. A web version by Marcel Hendrix is described as a tribute to this great book and is available for reading.

Marcel's version has been taken by Forth Inc. (the original book's copyright holder), and reformatted with much of the original artwork and lots of copyright reminders. You can view it here.

Juergen Pintaske at ExMark has produced a PDF with Forth Inc's permission to download.

Thinking Forth - Leo Brodie

A PDF of this wonderful book is available for download.

The following is taken from the description there.

Thinking Forth is a book about the philosophy of problem solving and programming style, applied to the unique programming language Forth. Published first in 1984, it could be among the timeless classics of computer books, such as Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month and Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming.

Many software engineering principles discussed here have been rediscovered in eXtreme Programming, including (re)factoring, modularity, bottom-up and incremental design. Here you'll find all of those and more - such as the value of analysis and design - described in Leo Brodie's down-to-earth, humorous style, with illustrations, code examples, practical real life applications, illustrative cartoons, and interviews with Forth's inventor, Charles H. Moore as well as other Forth thinkers.

If you program in Forth, this is a must-read book. If you don't, the fundamental concepts are universal: Thinking Forth is meant for anyone interested in writing software to solve problems. The concepts go beyond Forth, but the simple beauty of Forth throws those concepts into stark relief.

So flip open the book, and read all about the philosophy of Forth, analysis, decomposition, problem solving, style and conventions, factoring, handling data, and minimizing control structures. But be prepared: you may not be able to put it down.

Threaded Interpretive Languages - R. G. Loeliger

A historical classic about implementing threaded languages.

Introduces individuals owning microcomputers or minicomputers with minimal peripherals to the design and implementation of a threaded interpreter as an approach to developing a standard, nonstandard programming language.

Get it from Amazon.

Forth - The Early Years - Charles H. Moore

Forth - The Early Years: Background information about the beginnings of this Computer Language. Forth is a very special computer language - as is the inventor Charles H Moore. This eBook describes the early years of Forth, a simple natural computer language as Charles describes it, and how it developed over the years. It documents the different locations where the inventor Charles H Moore worked and optimized Forth. MIT 1958, Stanford 1961, Freelance 1965, Mohasco 1968, NRAO 1971. Within programming community there is a very strong feeling about this language - for it and against it, often quite emotional. Charles' moral from the eBook: I know Forth is the strongest language so far. I'm disturbed that people who should don't appreciate how it embodies their own description of the ideal programming language. Kindle Edition.

Programming A Problem Oriented Language - Charles H. Moore

Programming A Problem Oriented Language: Forth - how the internals work. How do you define a computer language? Charles takes you through the different steps and as well the reasoning behind it. Kindle Edition

Miscellaneous

The following sites contain Forth-related material.

Forth Interest Group, US

Forth Interest Group, UK, FIG UK is now defunct, this is a mirror.

Forth Interest Group, Russia

Forth Interest Group, Taiwan (in Chinese)

Forth-Gesellschaft e.V.

HCC Forth

Amazon

The online bookseller has a searchable section under

Programming:Languages:Forth

Note that searching the US site may give more results than your local country's site.