  File formats for generic data structures, such as ROOT, Avro, and Parquet,
pose a problem for deserialization: it must be fast, but its code depends on
the type of the data structure, not known at compile-time. Just-in-time
compilation can satisfy both constraints, but we propose a more portable
solution: specialized virtual machines. AwkwardForth is a Forth-driven virtual
machine for deserializing data into Awkward Arrays. As a language, it is not
intended for humans to write, but it loosens the coupling between Uproot and
Awkward Array. AwkwardForth programs for deserializing record-oriented formats
(ROOT and Avro) are about as fast as C++ ROOT and 10-80$\times$ faster than
fastavro. Columnar formats (simple TTrees, RNTuple, and Parquet) only require
specialization to interpret metadata and are therefore faster with precompiled
code.
