On a bare system (only boot+icore), this sequence will result in (c<) reading characters from memory starting from CURRENT (this is why we put CURRENT in BOOT C< PTR, it tracks current pos ). This means that you can put initialization code in source form right into your binary, right after your last compiled dict entry and it's going to be executed as such until you set a new (c<). Note that there is no EMIT in a bare system. You have to take care of supplying one before your load core.fs and its higher levels. (cont.)