One case per byte position, like C!: the cell is shifted down with a 2/ loop and masked. It replaces the version built on LSHIFT, RSHIFT and SWAP calls. C@ now leaves its caller 7 return entries (was 4), and the words above it gain with it: TYPE 6 (was 3), DUMP 4, Q.PRINT, U. and U.R 3 (were 2). The signed number words stay at 2: their sign waits on the return stack. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
v4/
StarForth v4: the 32-instruction F18-derived core. The design lives in
docs/v4.0.0/JUSTIFICATION.md (why) and docs/v4.0.0/DECOMPOSITION.md
(every v3 word mapped to a v4 fate).
The first deliverable is the hosted C99 golden model (JUSTIFICATION.md §10,
step 1). It must pass POST and hold K≡1.0 with 32- and 64-bit cells on all
three host ISAs.
Acceptance (JUSTIFICATION.md §16): v4 must be equivalent to v3 at any point
in time, with the same vocabularies and behaviour, on the F18-derived engine;
and every ISA, hosted and bare metal, must still reach its ok prompt.
make -C v4 test passing is a development check, not acceptance.
What exists so far is the single node: registers, circular stacks, memory, all
32 opcodes, per-opcode and per-call-target heat, and a console capture
register (CONSOLE-TX) standing in for the console node until the mesh exists. make -C v4 test builds
and runs the tests at both cell widths; make -C v4 sanitize repeats them
under ASan and UBSan. There is no compiler capsule, no POST and no K
measurement yet.