Circular Stacks

Another feature of Chuck's new Forth virtual machine model is his circular stacks. They greatly simplify the construction of his hardware and make the stacks in his architecture faster than general purpose registers in other architectures. They also greatly simply Forth. Chuck has said that stack overflow and underflow errors have always been a problem not just for Forth but for everyone. The problem is that they are destructive. Unanticipated errors happen but then the return stack gets corrupted errors can compound and systems can crash. Overflowing stacks can corrupt code and other data structures causing systems to crash. Hardware and software designers have put a lot of attention into managing these errors with elaborate hardware and software. That elaborate hardware and software adds complexity in other places like compilers and applications and that leads to more bugs. Chuck wanted to find a simple solution that wouldn't introduce complexity. Having the bottom N elements of the stack as a circular data structure meant that there was no arbitrary starting point. When you were done it was empty. You never had to empty it out before using it again, it was always at the start if you wanted it to be. If you program had bugs the worst thing that could happen on the stack is that stack data would be corrupted. That kind if error is a lot easier to deal with than corrupted code or memory structures. It also means that a Forth system does not have to deal with complex hardware mechanisms or complex software mechanisms the problem is either avoided or minimized as well as any approach can make it almost for free.

Jeff Fox
Thoughtful Programming in FORTH - Chapter 3



Thoughtful Programming in FORTH - Chapter 1

Thoughtful Programming in FORTH - Chapter 2

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



A Fourth Generation Computer Language

Charles Moore Goes To Saturn!


Design Of A [Computer] Language

Do you need an operating system?

Two Schools Of Thought About Computer Science



T. J. Pughe: Chip-Making Fool

Know