Re: Why dial-a-standard is not a thing in Forth

On 20/04/2025 09:18, Paul Rubin wrote:

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:

: DECIMAL ( -- )   10 BASE ! ;
does not contain an invocation of DECIMAL before this use of "10".

 : DECIMAL ( -- ) 5 5 + BASE ! ;
 should usually work.

As part of the Forth test suite there is a preliminary test program to be run before the Hayes core tests intended to aid in the development of a Forth systems with as few assumptions as possible, including not assuming the value of BASE. Having tested 0 and 1+ the system is set to decimal by:
0 1+ 1+ BASE !
It then tests BASE = 2, then
1010 BASE !
should always work
--
Gerry