[yoyohello13]

I think the difference is in why you want a forth compiler on the nes. Is it because you want to dig in and learn how a compiler on the nes would work? Or do you want a compiler so you can use it for something else you’re interested in doing? If your goal is the first one, then vibe coding is not going to be a good fit.

[tombert]

In my case it’s because forth is one of the only high-level languages that has a chance of running at a playable speed on the NES, and I just like the language in general.

If you look at old school development manuals for stuff like the C64 your options, to get decent performance for something you are writing it seems like the options were “forth” or “assembly”, and I find forth easier to reason about.

To answer the true essence of your question though, I wanted a forth compiler as a means to making an NES game, but after I got Codex to generate the compiler I kind of realize that what I actually wanted was the entire experience of making an NES game, including building the compiler.

[stevekemp]

I love FORTH and I agree that it would most likely run at a decent speed.

But just for reference it's worth pointing out out there was an official high-level language released for it, back in the day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_BASIC

[tombert]

I was actually aware of that; the problem with BASIC, at least with my research with homebrew C64 is that BASIC is ridiculously slow. It’s fine as a basic command line but for games I would likely not get anywhere near the performance I need.

What I am working on is stretching the NES pretty hard. Honestly I probably should do it in assembly but I like the idea of using a high level language to do it.

[stevekemp]

FORTh is awesome, so I wish you luck.

As you say of the obvious high-level languages it should come top, so here's hoping it has enough performance to be usable and useful.

[tombert]

I am getting pretty promising results from what I have right now, though I gotta admit that "thinking in Forth" definitely has a learning curve.

I've been debating going to nesfab [1] just in the interest of time.

[1] https://pubby.games/nesfab.html