On 17-Apr-14 16:35, Simon Clubley wrote:
> Are there FORTH compilers for every platform a C compiler runs on ?

Probably.
And even if there's not, FORTH is apparently really, /really/ easy to 
bootstrap.

 From the attached text-file:

> Why then would you want to learn FORTH?  There are several very good
> reasons. […]
>
> Secondly FORTH has a peculiar bootstrapping property.  By that I
> mean that after writing a little bit of assembly to talk to the
> hardware and implement a few primitives, all the rest of the language
> and compiler is written in FORTH itself.

So then, we could construct a FORTH-emitting compiler to bootstrap to a 
new system and have only to bootstrap FORTH (most of which we could 
write in itself) with those few [assembly] primitives.

Yes, it's a bit indirect -- but I don't see why most of that can't be 
generally automated into what is essentially a template --
(1)  Enter these basic parameters (native int-size, endianness, etc)
(2)  Fill in these basic assembly functions
(3)  Compile.
  (a) Spit out the Forth.
  (b) Feed the Forth emission of the compiler's own source to the FORTH.
  (c) Thus obtaining a compiler which runs on the new system.
  (d) Feed the compiler's own source to the Forth-bootstrap.
(4)  You now have a native and self-hosting Ada compiler.

Another option would be to have a component for describing the new 
hardware-target [in VHDL] and using that to target/emit.

In either case, targeting a new system should be EASY.