The ultimate Forth Benchmark

• StrongForth https://www.stephan-becher.de/strongforth/
  • A Forth with strong static type checking (might require some adjustments on the benchmark programs). MS-DOS 80x86
• T3X-Forth https://t3x.org/t3xforth/
  • T3XFORTH is an old-school, plain vanilla FORTH system that is mostly compatible to FORTH-79 with some parts borrowed from FIG FORTH, FORTH-83, and EFORTH
  • T3XFORTH runs on 8086 processors under DOS on an IBM PC, or stand-alone using the PC BIOS. It can also run on 32-bit Unix systems using a T3XFORTH VM emulator.
• DuskOS https://duskos.org/
  • Operating-System written in Forth
  • i386 (BIOS or EFI), amd64 (EFI), ARM, RISC-V, m68k
• TaliForth 2 https://github.com/scotws/TaliForth2
  • A Subroutine Threaded Code (STC) ANS-like Forth for the 65c02
• Third https://github.com/benhoyt/third
  • A small Forth compiler for 8086 DOS
• MilliForth 6502 https://github.com/agsb/milliForth-6502
  • The smallest Forth real programming language for 6502
• MilliForth x86 https://github.com/fuzzballcat/milliForth
  • A FORTH in 340 bytes - the smallest real programming language ever as of yet.
• MiniForth https://github.com/meithecatte/miniforth
  • A bootsector FORTH (x86)
• SectorForth https://github.com/cesarblum/sectorforth/
  • sectorforth is a 16-bit x86 Forth that fits in a 512-byte boot sector.
• Subleq-Forth https://github.com/howerj/subleq/
  • Forth for an 'One Instruction Set Computer' (OISC)
  • Very slow, but fascinating
  • Writing an SUBLEQ-VM is simple
  • SUBLEQ implemention for 6502 (VIC-20):
    • https://techtinkering.com/articles/subleq-on-the-commodore-vic-20/
    • https://github.com/lawrencewoodman/subleq_vic20

For the 2025 edition of the ultimate benchmark competition we have a new set of benchmark programs (taken from the FIGnition project https://sites.google.com/site/libby8dev/fignition)

These benchmark programs are designed to run on 16bit Forth systems, they might need to be adjusted for 32bit or 64bit systems.

This helper word will take an execution token (pointer to a Forth word) and the count and will then execute the Forth word "count" times, printing "START" at the beginning and "END" when finish.

This helper can be used to execute a benchmark multiple times.

Usage: ' <benchmark-word> <count> times

Example: ' countup 10000 times will execute the benchmark word countup 10000 times.

This is a simple benchmark that measures addition and loop performance.

: COUNTUP
  0 BEGIN
    1 + DUP
    9999 >
  UNTIL DROP
;

This benchmark tests basic arithmetic functions

: ARITHM
  0 BEGIN
    1 + DUP DUP / OVER
    * OVER + OVER -
    DROP DUP 9999 >
  UNTIL DROP
;

This benchmark tests the speed of subroutine (Forth word) calls. It calls a word that nests four levels deep.

: sub1 ;
: sub2 sub1 sub1 ;
: sub3 sub2 sub2 ;
: sub4 sub3 sub3 ;

: nesting
 0 BEGIN
   sub4 1 + DUP 9999 >
 UNTIL DROP
;

This benchmark measures the execution speed of various logic operators.

This benchmark exercises the data and the return stack, sending data back and forth between the stacks.

This benchmark repeatedly fills a 1.000 byte memory space with byte values and reads the values back.

• Systems Guide to FIG-Forth https://www.forth.org/OffeteStore/1010_SystemsGuideToFigForth.pdf
• Inside Forth-83 https://www.forth.org/OffeteStore/1003_InsideF83.pdf
• Forth Compatibility analysis https://forth-standard.org/standard/diff
• Programming Forth https://vfxforth.com/arena/ProgramForth.pdf
• Forth 20xx Standard https://forth-standard.org
• Forth-83 Standard https://www.hhcworld.com/files/HP71COMPENDIUM/PDF/FORTH-83_STANDARD_1983-08.pdf
• Forth-79 Standard https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/standards/Forth-79.pdf

Time in seconds, number of rounds in parentheses.