Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5
0a03ba7871
Expands the previously sparse \xc2\xa727.6 to match the derivation depth of
\xc2\xa727.3/\xc2\xa727.5.1/\xc2\xa727.5.2 -- worked line items, not just prose scoping.
Every primitive used (*/, WITHIN, CASE/OF/ENDOF, CREATE, EXECUTE, ',
LSHIFT/RSHIFT/AND/OR) was confirmed against src/word_source/*.c before
being used in a formula; no $/0x hex literal syntax exists in this tree,
so all formulas use decimal only.
Concrete design landed, in order derived:
- EM-UNITS 1000, standard Type1/OpenType em-square proportions; EM-X/
EM-Y/G-LINE scale-and-translate into CART-PLOT space via */ (noting
*/'s "avoid overflow" rationale is vestigial at this VM's 64-bit
cell_t width -- not a bug, just an observation)
- UTF-8 decoder: full bit-level 1/2/3/4-byte assembly formulas. Found
mid-derivation that the 3-byte path is v1-required, not future-i18n-
only -- smart quotes/dashes/ellipsis are Unicode General Punctuation
(U+2000-206F), NOT Latin-1 Supplement despite the original framing
lumping them together
- Dispatch: bucketed CASE/OF/ENDOF chains (DISPATCH-DIGIT/-UPPER/-LOWER/
-ASCII-PUNCT/-LATIN1/-GENPUNCT) routed by WITHIN range checks, chosen
over a flat 256-entry xt-table despite the table composing more
cleanly with override -- explicit tradeoff, not an oversight
- Glyph-word contract ( -- em-advance ), TOFU placeholder for misses,
~8-10 block budget estimate for dispatch alone
- Character list corrected and finalized: 113 glyphs (95 ASCII + 11
Latin-1 Supplement + 7 General Punctuation), itemized
- User font override: found CASE's early binding means redefining a
single glyph word does NOT retroactively change an already-compiled
DISPATCH-* caller (same binding behavior 4.3.3b found for CART-PLOT).
Resolved: override replaces a whole DISPATCH-* bucket word, not
individual glyphs -- explicit granularity tradeoff for keeping CASE
- TEXT entry point sketched at algorithm level
DECODE-UTF8's exact byte-consumption stack mechanics and TEXT's loop
are deliberately left as algorithm-level spec, not final FORTH -- this
project's history (VARIABLE alignment, Q.TO-INT sign bug) shows exactly
this class of stack/precision bug surfaces only under live testing, not
design review; presenting untested stack-juggling code as settled would
be the "confidently wrong" mistake \xc2\xa725.0 rule 4 warns against.
Punch-list items 4.3.6-4.3.6g (\xc2\xa725.5) updated to match: concrete Done-
when criteria replacing several that were previously vague or TBD
(4.3.6b now names the six buckets; 4.3.6c names the 113-glyph list;
4.3.6e goes from "TBD" to a real, testable override-mechanism
criterion; 4.3.6f requires proportional-width verification). Still no
implementation -- scoping and derivation only, per \xc2\xa725.0 rule 2.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
LithosAnanke v1.5.4
UEFI-bootable FORTH microkernel. Boots from firmware, initialises memory and interrupts, then runs the StarForth VM as its sole userspace runtime. No libc. No OS. Just stone and necessity.
Lithos (foundation) + Ananke (necessity) — the kernel under StarshipOS.
Status — M7.1 (Capsule System · Multi-VM Fleet)
| Milestone | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| M0–M6 | UEFI boot · PMM · VMM · IDT · APIC · heap · framebuffer VT100 console (v1.5.1-FINAL) | ✅ Complete |
| M7 | StarForth VM integration + parity validation | ✅ Complete |
| M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol · Mama FORTH vocabulary · Tripod multi-VM fleet (Hermes/Artemis) · Word-level ACL (Phases 1–7) | 🔄 In Progress |
| M8 | REPL — keyboard input, interactive Forth | Planned |
| M9 | Block storage — AHCI driver | Planned |
POST at boot: parity hash verified across amd64/aarch64/riscv64 · Mama capsule dictionary: 453 words
What's live in M7.1
- Tripod — a named multi-VM fleet (Hera the Mama VM, Artemis, two Hermes instances) births, runs, and re-births independently, verified booting live pre-REPL on all three architectures.
- Hermes — a 17-block inter-VM messaging/channel layer between fleet members, with async delivery and channel negotiation.
- Artemis — a Block Allocation Map (BAM) storage subsystem with Q48.16
block-heat tracking and cooldown/reclamation (
ART-COOL/ART-REAP). - Word-level ACL — every dictionary entry carries a TTL/allow/mode/pin
access-control record. Strict, TTL, and pinned modes; two console layers
(emergency
ok>and superuserzuse)ok>). Phases 1–7 complete (C infrastructure, FORTH policy layer,zusebootstrap superuser, Isabelle proof stubs, kernel parity); Phase 8 (Ed25519 PKI / thumbdrive challenge-response) is the only item remaining. Measured overhead once active on every check: +0.0054%–+0.0088%, CV = 0.000%, across a 3×3 Latin-square DoE campaign (architecture × seed × 30 replicates) — three orders of magnitude below the measurement floor. - VM Fleet Attractor physics — the L8 Jacquard mode selector now has a real per-VM heat channel into fleet-wide tuning, replacing hardcoded compudynamics constants with a dynamically-inferred rate.
- Kconfig build configuration — every physics/heartbeat/pipelining/ kernel-only tuning knob (~40 total) is now a discoverable, optional Kconfig symbol shared with the hosted VM build. See Quick Start below.
Quick Start
# Build kernel (requires cross-compilation toolchain, or native gcc)
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64
# Run in QEMU with OVMF
make -f Makefile.starkernel qemu
# Other architectures
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=aarch64 qemu
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=riscv64 qemu
Artifacts: build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_loader.efi · build/amd64/kernel/starkernel_kernel.elf
For the hosted VM by itself (Linux, no cross-compiler needed, no bare-metal tooling): see
the separate StarForth repository — LithosAnanke used to be a branch inside that repo,
now it's its own project with its own master.
Build configuration (optional)
Every kernel-only knob (STARFORTH_ENABLE_VM, PARITY_MODE, the shared
physics/heartbeat family, etc.) is an optional Kconfig symbol — a plain
make -f Makefile.starkernel uses the same defaults it always has unless
you opt in:
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 menuconfig
make -f Makefile.starkernel ARCH=amd64 kernel_amd64_defconfig
Documentation
| System Architecture | Full kernel + VM design |
| HAL Reference | Hardware abstraction layer interfaces |
| Capsule System — M7.1 | Capsule birth protocol design |
| VM Fleet Attractor design log | Tripod/Hermes/Artemis physics + build-system history |
| Getting Started / Kconfig reference | Full symbol reference for both build targets |
| Changelog | Milestone-level history |
| Roadmap | Milestone plan through self-hosting |
License
Starship License 1.0 (SL-1.0) — free for personal, research, and educational use. Commercial use requires a separate agreement. Attribution to R.A. James (Captain Bob) must be preserved in all distributions.
Patent pending. USPTO provisional filed December 2025 — physics-grounded self-adaptive runtime system. This license does not grant patent rights. Licensing inquiries: rajames440@gmail.com
Robert A. James (Captain Bob) · Systems Engineer · Hacking since 1973