CUBED - 144 Forth processors in your browser

An open-source emulator for the GreenArrays GA144 multi-computer chip and EVB002 evaluation board, paired with an experimental implementation of the CUBE 3D visual logic programming language.

The GA144 packs 144 tiny 18-bit Forth processors into a single chip, communicating through a mesh of blocking ports. CUBED lets you write, visualize, and step through programs for this unusual architecture right in your browser.

Features

• GA144 Emulator — cycle-level emulation of all 144 F18A nodes, inter-node communication, I/O ports, and ROM
• arrayForth Assembler — in-browser compiler for the Forth dialect used by GreenArrays, with instruction packing and multi-node support
• CUBE Compiler — experimental compiler for the CUBE 3D visual logic language, targeting F18A nodes with Hindley-Milner type inference
• 3D Visualization — interactive Three.js rendering of CUBE programs as spatial structures (containers, pipes, diamonds)
• Node Inspector — real-time view of registers, stacks, RAM, and execution state for all 144 nodes
• VGA Output Viewer — WebGL-backed VGA display with resolution detection
• Recurse Panel — recursive text/DSL playground for code generation
• cubec CLI — command-line compiler for CUBE programs

Quick Start

cd src
npm install
npm run dev

This starts the Vite dev server. Open the URL it prints (usually http://localhost:5173).

Build

cd src
npm run build

Output goes to src/dist/. The build includes TypeScript type checking (tsc -b) followed by the Vite production bundle.

Tests

cd src
npm run test

Project Structure

cubed/
  src/                  Vite + React + TypeScript application
    src/
      core/             Emulation engine (pure TypeScript, no DOM)
        f18a.ts         F18A processor emulation
        ga144.ts        GA144 chip (144 nodes + routing)
        compiler.ts     arrayForth assembler
        cube/           CUBE language compiler pipeline
          parser.ts     Tokenizer + parser
          resolver.ts   Name resolution + scope analysis
          inference.ts  Hindley-Milner type inference
          builtins.ts   Built-in predicate code generation
          codegen.ts    F18A code emission
      ui/               React UI components
        editor/         Monaco-based code editor
        cube3d/         Three.js 3D visualization
  docs/                 Markdown documentation
    index.html          Documentation hub
  reference/            Reference materials
    ga144/              Racket reference implementation (git submodule)

Documentation

Browse the docs at docs/index.html or read them directly:

• CUBE Language Spec — syntax, semantics, type system
• F18A Architecture — registers, memory, stacks
• F18A Instruction Set — opcode reference
• GA144 Node Map — 8x18 mesh topology
• GA144 I/O — ports, GPIO, analog
• GA144 Boot Process — boot sequences and wire protocol
• Application Notes — AN001-AN012
• arrayForth Compiler — compiler internals
• Programming Patterns — idiomatic F18A techniques
• cubec CLI — command-line compiler usage
• Architecture Overview — emulator and VGA pipeline
• VGA Profiling — performance measurement guide

CLI Compiler (cubec)

The CLI compiler lives in src/ and wraps cubec.ts:

cd src
./cubec samples/blue-rectangle.cube
./cubec samples/md5-hash.cube --verbose

Samples

Sample programs live under src/samples/. See src/samples/README.md for descriptions and suggested difficulty.

Contributing

This is an early-stage research project. Contributions are very welcome — whether that's improving emulation accuracy, extending the CUBE compiler, building new samples, writing docs, or just filing bugs.

Areas where help is especially useful:

• Emulation fidelity — verifying behavior against real hardware or the Racket reference
• CUBE language — type inference, code generation, new builtins
• Samples — interesting multi-node programs demonstrating GA144 patterns
• Documentation — anything from typo fixes to new guides

If massively parallel stack machines or 3D visual languages sound interesting to you, come help out!

Community

• GitHub — source code, issues, and pull requests
• Twitter / X — project updates
• Discord — emudev community

License

See individual files for license information.