On 15/02/2025 16:35, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
On 2/15/25 08:43, Frank Leonhardt via cctalk wrote:
As those of us with a few years will know, Tony Hoare (and Jill's)
implementation of Algol 60 on the Elliott 803 was a highly
significant event in the history of computer languages. It was the
first practical commercial Algol compiler, launched block structures
languages, and played a part in Elliott selling nearly 300 803B
computers at a time when 300 computers was a big number.
Obviously the US preferred Fortran and COBOL for commercial use, and
there were other Algol compilers in some shape or other knocking
about in universities. But I'd say this implementation put block
structured programming into the mainstream. (And it was the first
high level language I used, but that's beside the point).
The Bendix G15 (introduced in 1956) had ALGO, their variant of Algol.
Not sure when this was available, but likely after 1958 or so. I
think it was the only high level language available on that computer.
Running anything like Algol on a machine with drum memory seems a bit
optimistic!
