Short Code was one of the first higher-level languages developed for an
electronic computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...
. Unlike
machine code
In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a ve ...
, Short Code statements represented mathematic expressions rather than a machine instruction. Also known as an automatic programming, the source code was not compiled but executed through an interpreter to simplify the programming process; the execution time was much slower though.
History
Short Code was proposed by
John Mauchly
John William Mauchly (August 30, 1907 – January 8, 1980) was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first co ...
in 1949 and originally known as Brief Code. William Schmitt implemented a version of Brief Code in 1949 for the
BINAC
BINAC (Binary Automatic Computer) was an early electronic computer designed for Northrop Aircraft Company by the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) in 1949. Eckert and Mauchly, though they had started the design of EDVAC at the Univers ...
computer, though it was never debugged and tested. The following year Schmitt implemented a new version of Brief Code for the
UNIVAC I, where it was now known as Short Code (also Short Order Code). A revised version of Short Code was developed in 1952 for the Univac II by A. B. Tonik and J. R. Logan.
While Short Code represented expressions, the representation itself was not direct and required a process of manual conversion. Elements of an expression were represented by two-character codes and then divided into 6-code groups in order to conform to the 12-byte words used by BINAC and Univac computers. For example, the expression
a = (b + c) / b * c
was converted to Short Code by a sequence of substitutions and a final regrouping:
X3 = ( X1 + Y1 ) / X1 * Y1 substitute variables
X3 03 09 X1 07 Y1 02 04 X1 Y1 substitute operators and parentheses.
Note that multiplication is
represented by juxtaposition.
07Y10204X1Y1 group into 12-byte words.
0000X30309X1
Along with basic
arithmetic
Arithmetic () is an elementary part of mathematics that consists of the study of the properties of the traditional operations on numbers—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and extraction of roots. In the 19th ce ...
, Short Code allowed for branching and calls to a library of functions. The language was
interpreted and ran about 50 times slower than
machine code
In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a ve ...
.
[Malik, Masud Ahmad. Evolution of the High Level Programming Languages: A Critical Perspective. ACM SIGPLAN Notices (December 1998) 33(12) page 74.]
See also
*
History of programming languages
*
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
References
External links
* Wexelblat, Richard L. (Ed.) (1981). ''History of Programming Languages'', p. 9. New York: Academic Press.
* {{Cite web, url=http://hopl.info/showlanguage.prx?exp=2707&language=SHORT%20CODE, title=Short Code, last=, first=, date=, website=hopl.info, access-date=2018-05-20
Procedural programming languages
Programming languages created in 1950