Blue Hell - x4th

Last page update : 2007-12-04

Last x4th update : 2007.6.8.1 (this is a date folowed by a build number)

x4th is a Forth like cross compiler running under Windows targeting Microchip PIC processors. x4th compiles Forth sources into an assembly file, not directly into target code.

x4th is published under the GNU General Public License version 2.

You can read the manual here and you can download the package including source code, executable and some example code as a zip file.

To run x4th you'll need Windows, I use Windows XP.

To use x4th you'll also need a Microchip PIC development environment, I use MPLAB 7.50 from Microchip.

Directly supported processors for the current package are :

The F versions can make use of a boot loader. The libraries can easily be adopted for other processor types. In the past I've been using x4th for 17c44 and for 16c63 like processors, but those libraries are not up to date and not present in the x4th release. There is no real need for the processors to be Microchip ones, I just happen to use those a lot.

To compile x4th from it's source code you'll need Borland Delphi 7 with the JVCL tools installed. Borland no longer does Delphi, but CodeGear does, Delphi 2006 or 2007 would probably work OK.

There is a free version of Delphi (TurboExplorer) which might work, I didn't test it.

Today (2007-06-14) I tried (again) to compile x4th under Free Pascal and Lazarus. With some fiddling I seem to have got it working except for colors in the console window and the documentation system / system dump do not work either - anyone wanting it, just give me a ring. I give up on it, gdb just crashes instead of showing what goes wrong.

Example processor dependent library , and the same as a pdf with syntax color highlighting.

Example HTML documentation.

Example output file, and the same as a pdf with syntax color highlighting.