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CAL (programming Language)
CAL, short for Conversational Algebraic Language, was a programming language and system designed and developed by Butler Lampson at Berkeley in 1967 for the SDS 940 mainframe computer. CAL is a version of the seminal JOSS language with several cleanups and new features to take advantage of the SDS platform. The Berkeley SDS was used for the development of the Tymshare commercial time-sharing platform and an improved version of CAL was offered as a programming environment to its customers in 1969. Although CAL saw "almost no use", it had a lasting impact by influencing the design of Tymshare SUPER BASIC which copied a number of its features. Some of those features, in turn, appeared in BASIC-PLUS on the PDP-11, which is the direct ancestor of Microsoft BASIC.. Description Basic concepts JOSS had been designed to be used by non-programmers in the US Air Force and within Rand Corporation, and to aid with that, Rand designed to custom computer terminals that were easier to set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Programming Language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually defined by a formal language. Languages usually provide features such as a type system, Variable (computer science), variables, and mechanisms for Exception handling (programming), error handling. An Programming language implementation, implementation of a programming language is required in order to Execution (computing), execute programs, namely an Interpreter (computing), interpreter or a compiler. An interpreter directly executes the source code, while a compiler produces an executable program. Computer architecture has strongly influenced the design of programming languages, with the most common type (imperative languages—which implement operations in a specified order) developed to perform well on the popular von Neumann architecture. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in United States order of precedence, order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, airlift, rapid global mobility, Strategic bombing, global strike, and command and control. The United States Department of the Air Force, Department of the Air Force, which serves as the USAF's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assignment (computer Science)
In computer programming, an assignment statement sets and/or re-sets the value stored in the storage location(s) denoted by a variable name; in other words, it copies a value into the variable. In most imperative programming languages, the assignment statement (or expression) is a fundamental construct. Today, the most commonly used notation for this operation is ''x'' = ''expr'' (originally Superplan 1949–51, popularized by Fortran 1957 and C). The second most commonly used notation is ''x'' := ''expr'' (originally ALGOL 1958, popularised by Pascal). Many other notations are also in use. In some languages, the symbol used is regarded as an operator (meaning that the assignment statement as a whole returns a value). Other languages define assignment as a statement (meaning that it cannot be used in an expression). Assignments typically allow a variable to hold different values at different times during its life-span and scope. However, some languages (primarily stric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conditional Expression
In computer science, conditionals (that is, conditional statements, conditional expressions and conditional constructs) are programming language constructs that perform different computations or actions or return different values depending on the value of a Boolean expression, called a ''condition''. Conditionals are typically implemented by selectively executing instructions. Although dynamic dispatch is not usually classified as a conditional construct, it is another way to select between alternatives at runtime. Terminology Conditional statements are imperative constructs executed for side-effect, while conditional expressions return values. Many programming languages (such as C) have distinct conditional statements and conditional expressions. Although in pure functional programming, conditional expressions do not have side-effects, many languages with conditional expressions (such as Lisp) support conditional side-effects. If–then(–else) The if–then or if� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntactic Sugar
In computer science, syntactic sugar is syntax within a programming language that is designed to make things easier to read or to express. It makes the language "sweeter" for human use: things can be expressed more clearly, more concisely, or in an alternative style that some may prefer. Syntactic sugar is usually a shorthand for a common operation that could also be expressed in an alternate, more verbose, form: The programmer has a choice of whether to use the shorter form or the longer form, but will usually use the shorter form since it is shorter and easier to type and read. For example, many programming languages provide special syntax for referencing and updating array elements. Abstractly, an array reference is a procedure of two arguments: an array and a subscript vector, which could be expressed as get_array(Array, vector(i,j)). Instead, many languages provide syntax such as Array ,j/code>. Similarly an array element update is a procedure consisting of three arguments, fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Line Number
In computing, a line number is a method used to specify a particular sequence of characters in a text file. The most common method of assigning numbers to lines is to assign every line a unique number, starting at 1 for the first line, and incrementing by 1 for each successive line. In the C programming language the line number of a source code line is one greater than the number of new-line characters read or introduced up to that point. Programmers could also assign line numbers to statements in older programming languages, such as Fortran, JOSS, and BASIC. In Fortran, not every statement needed a line number, and line numbers did not have to be in sequential order. The purpose of line numbers was for branching and for reference by formatting statements. Both JOSS and BASIC made line numbers a required element of syntax. The primary reason for this is that most operating systems at the time lacked interactive text editors; since the programmer's interface was usually li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
User Interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine from the human end, while the machine simultaneously feeds back information that aids the operators' decision-making process. Examples of this broad concept of user interfaces include the interactive aspects of computer operating systems, hand tools, heavy machinery operator controls and Unit operation, process controls. The design considerations applicable when creating user interfaces are related to, or involve such disciplines as, ergonomics and psychology. Generally, the goal of user interface design is to produce a user interface that makes it easy, efficient, and enjoyable (user-friendly) to operate a machine in the way which produces the desired result (i.e. maximum usability). This generally means that the operator needs to provide mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Character Set
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using computers. The numerical values that make up a character encoding are known as code points and collectively comprise a code space or a code page. Early character encodings that originated with optical or electrical telegraphy and in early computers could only represent a subset of the characters used in written languages, sometimes restricted to upper case letters, numerals and some punctuation only. Over time, character encodings capable of representing more characters were created, such as ASCII, the ISO/IEC 8859 encodings, various computer vendor encodings, and Unicode encodings such as UTF-8 and UTF-16. The most popular character encoding on the World Wide Web is UTF-8, which is used in 98.2% of surveyed web sites, as of May 2024. In application programs and operating syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM Selectric
The IBM Selectric (a portmanteau of "selective" and "electric") was a highly successful line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on 31 July 1961. Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a typical typewriter of the period, the Selectric had a chrome-plated plastic "element" (frequently called a "typeball", or less formally, a "golf ball") that rotated and tilted to the correct position before striking the paper. The element could be easily interchanged to use different fonts within the same document typed on the same typewriter, resurrecting a capability which had been pioneered by typewriters such as the Hammond Typewriter, Hammond and Blickensderfer typewriter, Blickensderfer in the late 19th century. The Selectric also replaced the traditional typewriter's horizontally moving carriage with a roller (platen) that turned to advance the paper vertically while the typeball and ribbon mechanism moved horizontally across t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. Most early computers only had a front panel to input or display bits and had to be connected to a terminal to print or input text through a keyboard. Teleprinters were used as early-day hard-copy terminals and predated the use of a computer screen by decades. The computer would typically transmit a line of data which would be printed on paper, and accept a line of data from a keyboard over a serial or other interface. Starting in the mid-1970s with microcomputers such as the Sphere 1, Sol-20, and Apple I, display circuitry and keyboards began to be integrated into personal and workstation computer systems, with the computer handling character generation and outputting to a CRT display such as a computer monitor or, sometimes, a consumer TV, but most larger computers continued to require terminal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rand Corporation
The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the 1950s, RAND research has helped inform United States policy decisions on a wide variety of issues, including the Cold War space race, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the U.S.–Soviet nuclear arms confrontation, the creation of the Great Society social welfare programs, and national health care. RAND originated as "Project RAND" (from the phrase "research and development") in the post-war period immediately after World War II. The U.S. Army Air Forces established Project RAND with the objective of investigating long-range planning of future weapons. Douglas Aircraft Company was granted a contract to research intercontinental warfare. Project RAND later evolved into RAND, and expanded its research into civilian fields suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
