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FOR TRANSIT
FOR TRANSIT (also incorrectly FORTRANSIT) is a subset of the FORTRAN programming language for the IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine, developed by a group led by Bob Bemer. FORTRAN, the first high-level programming language, was developed for the IBM 704 in 1957, at the same time IBM wanted to provide something similar for customers of the older, less powerful, but popular 650—eventually over 2000 650s were sold. FOR TRANSIT was upward compatible with 704 FORTRAN with some restrictions. For example variable names could only be five characters rather than six, and arrays could have a maximum of two dimensions instead of three. FOR TRANSIT was a multi-pass compiler. The first pass translated the source to an intermediate language, IT (Internal Translator), written by Alan Perlis and others at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1957. The second pass compiled the IT into SOAP assembler code, and finally the SOAP code was assembled into the machine language I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM 650
The IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine is an early digital computer produced by IBM in the mid-1950s. It was the first mass-produced computer in the world. Almost 2,000 systems were produced, the last in 1962, and it was the first computer to make a meaningful profit. The first one was installed in late 1954 and the IBM 650 was the most popular computer of the 1950s. The 650 was offered to business, scientific and engineering users as a slower and less expensive alternative to the IBM 701 and IBM 702 computers, which were for scientific and business purposes respectively. It was also marketed to users of unit record equipment, punched card machines who were upgrading from Unit record equipment#Calculating, calculating punches, such as the IBM 604, to computers. Because of its relatively low cost and ease of Computer programming, programming, the 650 was used to pioneer a wide variety of applications, from modeling submarine crew performance to teaching high schoo ... [...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] |
Bob Bemer
Robert William Bemer (February 8, 1920 – June 22, 2004) was a computer scientist best known for his work at IBM during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Early life and education Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Bemer graduated from Cranbrook Kingswood School in 1936 and took a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in mathematics at Albion College in 1940. He earned a certificate in aeronautical engineering at Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute in 1941. Career Bemer began his career as an aerodynamicist at Douglas Aircraft Company in 1941, then worked for RAND Corporation from 1951, IBM from 1957, UNIVAC – Sperry Rand in 1965, Bull from 1965, General Electric from 1970, and Honeywell from 1974. He served on the committee which amalgamated the design for his COMTRAN language with Grace Hopper's FLOW-MATIC and thus produced the specifications for COBOL. He also served, with Hugh McGregor Ross and others, on the separate committee which defined the ASCII character codeset in 1960, c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-level Programming Language
A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong Abstraction (computer science), abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ''elements'', be easier to use, or may automate (or even hide entirely) significant areas of computing systems (e.g. memory management), making the process of developing a program simpler and more understandable than when using a lower-level language. The amount of abstraction provided defines how "high-level" a programming language is. In the 1960s, a high-level programming language using a compiler was commonly called an ''autocode''. Examples of autocodes are COBOL and Fortran. The first high-level programming language designed for computers was Plankalkül, created by Konrad Zuse. However, it was not implemented in his time, and his original contributions were largely isolated from other developments due to World War II, aside from the language's influe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM 704
The IBM 704 is the model name of a large digital computer, digital mainframe computer introduced by IBM in 1954. Designed by John Backus and Gene Amdahl, it was the first mass-produced computer with hardware for floating-point arithmetic. The IBM 704 ''Manual of operation'' states: The type 704 Electronic Data-Processing Machine is a large-scale, high-speed electronic calculator controlled by an internally stored program of the single address type. The 704 at that time was thus regarded as "pretty much the only computer that could handle complex math". The 704 was a significant improvement over the earlier IBM 701 in terms of architecture and implementation. Like the 701, the 704 used vacuum-tube logic circuitry, but increased the instruction size from 18-bit computing, 18 bits to 36-bit computing, 36 bits, the same as the memory's word size. Changes from the 701 include the use of magnetic-core memory instead of Williams tubes, floating-point arithmetic instructions, 15 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upward Compatibility
Forward compatibility or upward compatibility is a design characteristic that allows a system to accept input intended for a later version of itself. The concept can be applied to entire systems, electrical interfaces, telecommunication signals, data communication protocols, file formats, and programming languages. A standard supports forward compatibility if a product that complies with earlier versions can " gracefully" process input designed for later versions of the standard, ignoring new parts which it does not understand. The objective for forward compatible technology is for old devices to recognise when data has been generated for new devices. Forward compatibility for the older system usually means backward compatibility for the new system, i.e. the ability to process data from the old system; the new system usually has ''full'' compatibility with the older one, by being able to both process and generate data in the format of the older system. Forward compatibility is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multi-pass Compiler
A multi-pass compiler is a type of compiler that processes the source code or abstract syntax tree of a program several times. This is in contrast to a one-pass compiler, which traverses the program only once. Each pass takes the result of the previous pass as the input, and creates an intermediate output. In this way, the (intermediate) code is improved pass by pass, until the final pass produces the final code. Multi-pass compilers are sometimes called wide compilers, referring to the greater scope of the passes: they can "see" the entire program being compiled, instead of just a small portion of it. The wider scope thus available to these compilers allows better Code generation (compiler), code generation (e.g. smaller code size, faster code) compared to the output of one-pass compilers, at the cost of higher compiler time and memory consumption. In addition, some programming language, languages cannot be compiled in a single pass, as a result of their design. Typical multi-pas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Perlis
Alan Jay Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) was an American computer scientist and professor at Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University. He is best known for his pioneering work in programming languages and was the first recipient of the Turing Award. Biography Perlis was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1939. In 1943, he received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (later renamed Carnegie Mellon University). During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army, where he became interested in mathematics. He then earned both a master's degree (1949) and a Ph.D. (1950) in mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His doctoral dissertation was titled "On Integral Equations, Their Solution by Iteration and Analytic Continuation". In 1952, he participated in Project Whirlwind. He joined the faculty at Purdue University and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnegie Institute Of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, it became Carnegie Mellon University through its merger with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, founded in 1913 by Andrew Mellon and Richard B. Mellon and formerly a part of the University of Pittsburgh. The university consists of seven colleges, including the College of Engineering, the School of Computer Science, and the Tepper School of Business. The university has its main campus located 5 miles (8 km) from downtown Pittsburgh. It also has over a dozen degree-granting locations in six continents, including campuses in Qatar, Silicon Valley, and Kigali, Rwanda (Carnegie Mellon University Africa) and partnerships with universities nationally and globally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbolic Optimal Assembly Program
The Symbolic Optimal Assembly Program (SOAP) is an assembler for the IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine, an early computer first used in 1954. It was developed by Stan Poley at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. SOAP is called "Optimal" (or "Optimum") because it attempts to store generated instructions on the storage drum to minimize the access time from one instruction to the next. SOAP is a multi-pass assembler, that is, it processes the source program more than once in order to generate the object program. The first version of SOAP was succeeded by SOAP II in 1957, which supported additional hardware features such as index registers and magnetic core memory, then SOAP IIA in 1958, SOAP 2L, SOAP 2L Tape, SOAP 4000, and SOAP 42 in 1961. SOAP was used as a backend to the FOR TRANSIT compiler in 1957. Donald Knuth independently produced versions named SOAP III in 1958 and SUPERSOAP in 1959 at Case Institute of Technology, now part of Case Western Reserve U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Language
In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonbinary machines it is, e.g., a decimal representation. representation of a computer program that is actually read and interpreted by the computer. A program in machine code consists of a sequence of machine instructions (possibly interspersed with data). Each machine code instruction causes the CPU to perform a specific task. Examples of such tasks include: # Load a word from memory to a CPU register # Execute an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) operation on one or more registers or memory locations # Jump or skip to an instruction that is not the next one In general, each architecture family (e.g., x86, ARM) has its own instruction set architecture (ISA), and hence its own specific machine code language. There are exceptions, such as the V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
