Efficient RAM Usage

RAM is probably the scarcest resource of an atmega. To make the best of it, some additional words may be helpful.

cvariable

cvariable acts like variable but does not allocate a cell (2 bytes) but only 1 byte of RAM. Access to it is limited to c@ and c!. To indicate the size, one may want to use the Hungarian Notation.

There are a few possible implementations. One uses carnal knowledge of the inner workings, the other one relies on the fact that 1 cell is 2 bytes RAM in amforth.

: cvariable
   here constant 1 allot ; \ carnal knowledge

\ just a variable, but gives one byte RAM back to pool
\ : cvariable variable -1 allot ;

Use of such small variables is just like other ones:

answer cvariable \ allocates 1 byte only!
42 answer c!
answer c@ .

\ troublesome
answer @ .    \ undetermined
4242 answer ! \ destroys other data

See also

Defining and using Arrays and the cvalue section in Values