Sfera versions history

Note: Version numbering after Semantic Versioning.

0.0.0

Initial development, from 2015-12-31 to 2016-01-14. Started from a simple boot file.

First usable version.

The main words are defined in the <boot_fs> file. Optional words are in Forth or binary files.

code, end-code, next, and other basic words to facilitate creating machine code definitions.
Set of standard address arithmetic words.
Set of header addresses words.
New operators and stack words.
Nestable include, included; non-nestable versions include-code and included-code for assembled binary files.
Nestable require, required; non-nestable versions require-code and required-code for assembled binary files.
Tool modules: dump, wdump, adump, decode (some fixes pending).
Floating point module updated with standard names, and some comus addons.
New parsing and compiling words, like postpone.
Basic initial support for standard strings.
Numeric prefixes: c#, h#, d#, b#.
Fixed two name clashes: char is renamed to chr@ and unused is renamed to spared. Standard char and unused are provided.
New string operators which work with ordinary counted strings (the SuperForth string operators work only with its own format, which include the maximum length).
Conditional compilation.
Standard endcase.
Words to facilitate reading the keyboard.
Words to facilitate managing the windows: set-window, window, set-main-window…
boot reboots the Forth system.
Standard value (single-cell values only).
System information words: screen-size, get-mode, sys-vars, current-job-id.

New: more system information words: machine , processor, display-type.
New: words to allocate memory from the OS common heap: aallocate, afree, aunused.
Change: screen-size is renamed to display-size.
New: standard deferred words: defer, defer!, defer@, defers, action-of, is.
Removed win-base-len, which still is a draft.

Main changes:

Other changes:

Improvement: one loader for every binary module, so all modules can be loaded with the standard words, no matter if they are coded in Forth or assembly.
New: al@, a variant of a2@ which puts the low part on top of stack.
Fix: the limit of nested sources is checked.
Change: files of aallocate and aunused are renamed, according to the convention representing Forth word names by their components, the way they are pronounced.
New: dp, align, move.
Change: uppercase expects an address and a length.
Change: Moved dump-address, allocate, save-mem and ?\ to their own files.
New: ?os-error.
Fix: set-default-channel.
New: bench_fs.
Fix: renaming of unused to spared.
New: ununderscore, a tool for renaming the original words of SuperForth.