Forth AVR Stamp Hardware & Compiler

Last updated: 29 April 2003

 Forth has always been a preferred language for embedded systems, and now you can obtain a professional grade development system with Forth compiler, assembler, disassembler, SPI downloader and AVR family Flash development board for only £99 (US$ 145, Euro 163). VAT is charged for UK customers, and post and packing is charged at cost.

Compiler

The compiler is based on the MPE Forth IRTC compiler, which includes the AIDE development environment, Forth compiler, interactive assembler and disassembler, SPI Flash downloader (no programmer required!) and interactive Umbilical Forth development system. No device programmer is needed as the Forth Stamp is programmed from the PC printer port. All you have to do is to supply the 5v power supply and a five wire cable from the PC printer port to the Forth Stamp's ISP (In System Programming) connector.

Forth Stamp Hardware

The Forth Stamp hardware consists of the high-speed Atmel AT90S8515 AVR CPU running at 8 Mhz (8 MIPS Max throughput), plus serial interface drivers, LEDs and interface circuitry and decoding for adding your own memory mapped peripherals. The Atmel AT90S8515 CPU includes 8k bytes of Flash for code, 512 bytes of RAM, 512 bytes of EEPROM, SPI and serial hardware drivers, timers and much more. The Forth Stamp is very small and has its own 48 pin Forth Stamp connector. This makes it an ideal solution for a wide range of embedded systems. By implementing an in circuit programming interface the Forth Stamp can be programmed, tested and debugged on site.

Restrictions from the full compiler

Apart from code space being restricted to 8k bytes, this is the full MPE AVR IRTC Forth cross compiler and target code. Upgrades are available from the Forth Stamp compiler to the IRTC version.

Please note that the Forth Stamp compiler requires direct access to the PC printer port for interactive programming. For users of Windows NT, 2000 and other Windows variants which normally do not permit direct access to ports, the Forth Stamp compiler is provided with a direct acess port driver.