Mecrisp-Stellaris Port Brings the Forth Programming Language to the Raspberry Pi Pico, RP2040
In-depth demonstration video, and handy word list, shows how to get started with Forth on the Raspberry Pi Pico or other RP2040 board.
For those bored of C, MicroPython, and CircuitPython, there's a new option for writing code on the Raspberry Pi Pico: Forth, thanks to a port of the Arm-compatible Mecrisp-Stellaris Forth — as showcased on the 033mer YouTube channel.
Developed by Chuck Moore and first released in the 1970s, Forth is a typeless procedural programming language with interactive and compiled operating modes. Like many of its peers, Forth has been ported to a range of microcontrollers with Mecrisp-Forth by Matthias Koch bringing the language to the Texas Instruments MSP430 family and its successor Mecrisp-Stellaris offering compatibility with Arm Cortex-M processors.
It's this latter Forth that is the focus of the latest video on the 033mer YouTube channel, demonstrating how to get Mecrisp-Stellaris Forth up and running on the Arm Cortex-M0+-based microcontroller at the heart of the Raspberry Pi Pico development board.
The video showcases the use of a pre-compiled U2F firmware which can be simply dragged and dropped onto the Raspberry Pi Pico. Like the official C Software Development Kit (SDK) and MicroPython firmwares, Mecrisp-Stellaris Forth offers full support for using the Raspberry Pi Pico's general-purpose input/output (GPIO) ports.
As well as the Mecrisp-Stellaris Forth firmware, 033mer has released a word list containing all the custom words demonstrated in the video while a companion readme file offers an overview of the port's special features and RAM handling.
The full video is now available on the 0033mer YouTube channel.