Forth-41

[lmamakos]

The BASE will always be 10 in the current mode. Note that the "." word that prints the top of the stack prints it in using the current BASE.

You should try
BASE @ DECIMAL .
to print out the current base in base 10, where you should see 16. Which has the side effect of changing the base to DECIMAL. To preserve it, something like
BASE @ DUP DECIMAL . BASE !
would restore the BASE after printing.

Note that I've never used Forth-41; this is just based on my generic experience with FORTH.