Legacy Product: VFX Forth for DOS
Last update: 15 January 2020
Features
- Graphics EGA/VGA and above colour graphics support
- Screen support Direct screen drive with pop-up and tiled text windows
- PowerNet Telnet and Web servers
- Fully Compatible with DOS 6.x to Windows 98, NT, 2000, and XP.
- Compatibility with other MPE Products.
- Support services – standard, extended and advanced technical support.
- Common features in all VFX Forth systems
- See also – VFX Forth for Mac OS X
- See also – VFX Forth for x86 Linux
- See also – VFX Forth for ARM Linux
- See also – VFX Forth for Windows
Since VFX Forth for DOS shares code with the other VFX Forth products, please refer to the common code page for a more detailed description of items common to all versions, such as code generation. Note that common features are not available that rely on DLLs and other features not present in DOS.
VFX Forth for DOS is no longer being actively developed. Support is only available with a Professional or Ultimate subscription. The recommended migration path is to VFX Forth for x86 or ARM Linux. Most users have chosen the ARM version.
Read the latest release notes. The current release is v4.6.
Graphics
VFX Forth for DOS includes graphics functions compatible with modes of current video adaptors. The functions include lines, circles, arcs, boxes, polygons, flooded areas and background colours. Different line types may be selected and text may be mixed on the screen.
The graphics functions are provided by a BGI (Borland Graphics Interface) TSR interface, for which a wide range of video drivers are available.
Screen Control
All functions drive the screen direct by default. This may be directed to other devices through the vectored I/O system used by ProForth for DOS. Support for text windows is also built-in – tiled windows, pop-up windows, with or without borders, headers, etc. Windows may be opened, closed, moved, reopened, etc. at will, both interactively and under program control. BIOS and ANSI support are also included.
PowerNet
The PowerNet Echo, Telnet and Web servers are available for VFX Forth for DOS at extra charge. Note that because of the variations between DOS versions and facilities, you may need to write an Ethernet driver. MPE can provide consultancy support.
These are multi-threaded servers. The Web server supports CGI and ASP, with Forth being used as the scripting language. SOAP, XML and Web Services are provided for direct interchange of information between VFX Forth and and any web service enabled product such as MS Excel and Project. The PowerNet shipped with VFX Forth is an enhancement of the code in the embedded verion, so see the PowerNet page for more details of PowerNet
PowerNet can be embedded inside your applications to provide fully Web enabled systems. Note that
Fully Compatible with DOS and DOS boxes
We use a royalty-free DOS extender which is supplied with full source code. Turnkey applications are bound with the DOS extender to make stand-alone applications for distribution. VFX Forth for DOS is the only package you need to develop and ship DOS protected mode applications.
System Requirements:
- Any version of DOS 6.x or Windows 98, NT, 2000, or XP.
- A maths co-processor is required for floating-point maths.
Compatible with other MPE Products
The VFX Forth kernel is source-code compatible with MPE’s Forth 6 cross compilers, and compatibility for earlier versions of VFX Forth for DOS and MPE’s Forth 83 standard products has been made simple. A harness exists to ease conversion from ProForth for DOS.
Support Services
MPE has been supporting professional Forth users since 1981. We offer the following services:
Advanced Technical Support
- Ad-hoc on-site support
- Forth Programming Courses
- Custom Application Design
- Programming Services
Go to the pricelist page.