# Actor (programming language)

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Programming language

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The **Actor** programming language was invented by Charles Duff of The [Whitewater Group](/source/Whitewater_Group) in 1988. It was an offshoot of some object-oriented extensions to the [Forth](/source/Forth_(programming_language)) language he had been working on.[1]

Actor is a pure object-oriented language in the style of [Smalltalk](/source/Smalltalk). Like Smalltalk, everything is an object, including small integers. A [Baker](/source/Henry_Baker_(computer_scientist)) semi-space [garbage collector](/source/Garbage_collection_(computer_science)) is used, along with (in memory-constrained Windows 2.1 days) a software virtual memory system that swaps objects. A token threaded [interpreter](/source/Interpreted_language),[2] written in 16-bit [x86 assembly language](/source/X86_assembly_language), executes compiled code.

Actor only was released for Microsoft Windows 2.1 and 3.0. Actor used a pure object-oriented framework over native operating system calls as its basic GUI architecture. This allows an Actor application to look and feel exactly like a Windows application written in C, but with all the advantages of an interactive Smalltalk-like development environment. Both a downside and upside to this architecture is a tight coupling to the Windows architecture, with a thin abstraction layer into objects. This allows direct use of the rich Windows OS API, but also makes it nearly impossible to support any other OS without a significant rewrite of the application framework.

A demo of Actor was shown in an episode of [Computer Chronicles](/source/Computer_Chronicles).[3]

## Further reading

- Franz, Marty (1990). [*Object-oriented programming featuring Actor*](https://archive.org/details/objectorientedpr0000fran/mode/2up). Scott, Foresman & Co. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-673-38641-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-673-38641-4).

- Don Crabs (15 October 1990). ["Actor offers a sophisticated OOP development system"](https://books.google.com/books?id=LjwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT86). *InfoWorld*. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.: 86–. [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0199-6649](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0199-6649). Retrieved 18 August 2011.

- ["It Was The Programming Language Of The Future – So Why Is Nobody Using It?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbjLwSUqEpM). *Code with Huw*. YouTube. Retrieved 19 February 2025.

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Ziff Davis Inc (1991-03-26). [*PC Mag*](https://books.google.com/books?id=f7GkbOJrVekC&dq=charles+duff+actor+programming&pg=PT346). Ziff Davis, Inc.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** InfoWorld Media Group (1991-02-25). [*InfoWorld*](https://books.google.com/books?id=X1AEAAAAMBAJ&q=Whitewater+Group+actor&pg=PA45). InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** [*Computer Chronicles. Episode 718. Programming Languages*](http://archive.org/details/programming_2), 1990-03-01, retrieved 2022-07-10

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Actor (programming language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_(programming_language)) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_(programming_language)?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.