A-0 System
The A-0 system (Arithmetic Language version 0) was an early[1] compiler related tool developed for electronic computers, written by Grace Murray Hopper[2] in 1951 and 1952 originally for the UNIVAC I.[3] The A-0 functioned more as a loader or linker than the modern notion of a compiler.[4] [5] [6] A program was specified as a sequence of subroutines and its arguments. The subroutines were identified by a numeric code and the arguments to the subroutines were written directly after each subroutine code. The A-0 system converted the specification into machine code that could be fed into the computer a second time to execute the said program.
The A-0 system was followed by the A-1, A-2,[7] A-3 (released as ARITH-MATIC), AT-3 (released as MATH-MATIC) and B-0 (released as FLOW-MATIC).
The A-2 system was developed at the UNIVAC division of Remington Rand in 1953 and released to customers by the end of that year.[8] Customers were provided the source code for A-2 and invited to send their improvements back to UNIVAC. Thus, A-2 could be considered an example of the result of an early philosophy similar to free and open-source software.[9]
See also
Notes
- ^ "List of early compilers and assemblers".
- S2CID 14878552.
- ^ Hopper "Keynote Address", Sammet pg. 12
- .
- ^ Bruderer, Herbert. "Did Grace Hopper Create the First Compiler?".
- .
- ^ * "PAPERS: Automatic Programming: The A 2 Compiler System -- Part I". Computers and Automation. 4 (9): 25–29. Sep 1955. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
- "PAPERS: Automatic Programming: The A 2 Compiler System -- Part II". Computers and Automation. 4 (10): 15–27. Oct 1955. Retrieved 2020-09-05.
- ISBN 9780262032551.
- ^ "Heresy & Heretical Open Source: A Heretic's Perspective".
External links
References
- Hopper, Grace (May 1952). "The Education of a Computer" (PDF). Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery Conference (Pittsburgh) May 1952. pp. 243–249. .
- Hopper, Grace (16 February 1955). "Automatic Coding for Digital Computers" (PDF). High Speed Computer Conference (Louisiana State University) February 1955. Remington Rand.
- Hopper, Grace. "Keynote Address". Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages (HOPL) conference.
- Ridgway, Richard K. (1952). "Compiling Routines". Proceedings of the 1952 ACM national meeting (Toronto) ACM '52.
- Sammet, Jean (1969). Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals. Prentice-Hall. pp. g. 12.