EuroForth 2003

This year's conference has been widely publicised and much interest has been shown from all sections of the Forth community, also form a wide geographical area.

It has become clear however, that the financial constraints imposed by the current state of the global economy have severely restricted both the production of papers, particularly in the industrial stream, and the ability to attend the conference in both the industrial and academic streams.

In view of this, a specific theme was not put forward for the conference this year as it this would seem to be imposing further restrictions. Instead, the sessions are arranged such that the Friday is devoted to the academic stream and the presentation of the refereed papers, of which there are three: while the Saturday is devoted mainly to the use of Forth in commercial and practical applications. Sessions on the third day will be given over to workshops and to the drawing together of conclusions from this conference and the way forward.

The second session of the conference makes a departure from the usual pattern in that it involves a visit to a local engineering company whose robotic products are controlled using Forth. The technology has been presented at a previous EuroForth conference (A hydraulic servo controller using the IX1 microprocessor, A. C. Wheatley and N. J. Nelson, EuroForth 2000). A copy of this is included with the proceedings for the benefit of first time delegets. Thanks are extended to Mr Hayden Risbey and Mr Steven Richards of Travers Metal Products for their permission to make this visit and their assistance in planning it.

It is hoped that as usual, the delegates will draw much inspiration and intellectual stimulation from the workshops and informal discussions, and find that EuroForth 2003 maintains the vibrancy of its predecessors and furthers the scope of Forth.

Thanks go to the authors for allowing us to making thair papers available electronically.