MIIS (Meditech Interpretive Information System) is a

MUMPS MUMPS ("Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System"), or M, is an imperative, high-level programming language with an integrated transaction processing key–value database. It was originally developed at Massachusetts Gener ...

-like

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

that was created by A.Neil Pappalardo and Curt W. Marble, on a DEC PDP at Mass General Hospital from 1964 to 1968. MUMPS evolution took two major directions: MUMPS proper and MIIS. MUMPS became an ANSI and ISO-standard language. When many MUMPS implementations standardized to be compatible, MIIS did not standardize, but became a proprietary system instead. As an example of the differences between MUMPS and MIIS, the value of a logical expression in MUMPS may be false = zero or true = non-zero, canonically, one. In MIIS, the value false is the

empty string In formal language theory, the empty string, or empty word, is the unique string of length zero. Formal theory Formally, a string is a finite, ordered sequence of characters such as letters, digits or spaces. The empty string is the special cas ...

and the value of true is a string consisting of the ASCII

delete character The delete control character (also called DEL or rubout) is the last character in the ASCII repertoire, with the code 127. It is supposed to do nothing and was designed to erase incorrect characters on paper tape. It is denoted as in caret notati ...

(code 127 decimal). There is also a philosophical difference between the dialects. MIIS often takes the approach that code should march along, regardless of possible errors, where MUMPS will error out to prevent more serious problems. For example, when encountering an undefined variable, MUMPS generates an error where MIIS treats it as nil. In the 1980s Brigham and Women's Hospital in Massachusetts used MIIS to program their

Data General Data General Corporation was one of the first minicomputer firms of the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Their first product, 1969's Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer ...

Mainframe. In 1986, SCAMCbr>reported
that Vancouver General Hospital also had an Integrated Cardiology Patient Management System written in MIIS. The MIIS language has been used in programming library systems as well as health industry systems. The OCLC's library system is one example. It has also been used to create financial systems for insurance brokers, as seen in Ireland and the UK in the late 1970s.

References

* * MUMPS programming language family Dynamically typed programming languages Scripting languages {{compu-lang-stub