WATFIV programming language
Encyclopedia
WATFIV, or WATerloo FORTRAN IV, developed at the University of Waterloo
, Canada
is an implementation of the Fortran
computer programming language
. It is the successor of WATFOR.
WATFIV was used from the late 1960s into the mid 1970s. WATFIV was in turn succeeded by later versions of WATFOR.
Because it could complete the three usual steps ("compile-link-go") in just one pass, the system became popular for teaching students computer programming.
departments started university programs to teach computer programming language
s. The Fortran
language had been developed at IBM
, but suffered from slow and error-prone three-stage batch processing
workflow. In the first stage, the compiler
started with source code
and produced object code
. In the second stage, a linker constructed a complete program using growing libraries of common functions. Finally, the program was repeatedly executed with data for the typical scientific and business problems of customers. Each step often included a new set of punched card
s or tape. Students, on the other hand, had very different requirements. Their progams were generally short, but usually contained errors, resulting in time-consuming repetition of the steps and confusing "core dump
s". Once their prorgams worked correctly, they were turned in and not run again.
In 1961, the University of Wisconsin developed a technology called FORGO for the IBM 1620
which combined some of the steps.
Similar experiments were carried out at Purdue University
on the IBM 7090
in a system called PUFFT.
, Gus German, James G. Mitchell
Richard Shirley and Robert Zarnke, led by Peter Shantz, developed a Fortran compiler for the IBM 7040
computer called WATFOR. Its objectives were fast compilation speed and effective error diagnostics at both compile and execution time. It eliminated the need for a separate linking step and, as a result, FORTRAN programs which contained no syntax errors were placed into immediate execution. Professor J. Wesley Graham (1932–1999) provided leadership throughout the project.
This simple, one-step process allowed non-experienced programmers to learn programming with lower cost in time and computing resources. The version of WATFOR quickly gained popularity and over 75 institutions installed it on their IBM 7040 systems. The distribution of the compiler was handled by Sandra Bruce (née Hope).
, Lothar K. "Ned" Kesselhut, Bill Kindree and Dereck Meek, who were later joined by Mike Doyle, Rod Milne, Ron Hurdal and Lynn Williams, completed 360 WATFOR in the early part of 1967. Many other institutions (universities, colleges, businesses and governmental agencies) started using the WATFOR compiler to meet needs similar to those experienced at the University of Waterloo. The distribution of the software and customer support was carried on by Sandra Ward.
user group Fortran committee and others, a new version called WATFIV was produced in 1968. WATFIV introduced new features such as CHARACTER variables and direct-access input-output. The Association for Computing Machinery
presented Paul Cress and Paul Dirksen the Grace Murray Hopper Award
for contributions to the WATFOR and WATFIV projects in 1972. The WATFIV compiler was included in the DATAPRO Honour Roll for 1975 and 1976.
People involved with maintenance and enhancement included Bernie Murphy, Martin Wiseman and Yvonne Johnson.
Universities and corporations used these compilers and a number of other software products have been developed in the WATFOR tradition.
For example, a version for the COBOL
programming language was called WATBOL.
Daniel D. McCracken
said "it is no exageration to suggest that WATFOR revolutionized the use of computers in education." At one point, more than 3,000 mini and mainframe computer licenses and over 100,000 microcomputer licenses were held worldwide for this family of software products.
PDP-11
computer and called WATFOR-11. The team members, Jack Schueler, Jim Welch and Terry Wilkinson, were later joined by Ian McPhee who had added new control statements to the WATFIV compiler for structured programming
(SP). These new statements included the block IF (later included in the ANSI X3.9-1978 language standard), WHILE, UNTIL, and others. WATFIV-S was announced in 1974 and a few months later, WATFOR-11S (the "S" indicating the new SP features) was also announced. The original SP features were later enhanced with additional statements by Bruce Hay in WATFIV-S in 1980 and by Jack Schueler in WATFOR-11S in 1981.
As programmers used the FORTRAN 77 features, a new compiler was required to combine the advantages of the WATFIV compiler with the new language standard. In January 1983, a project to develop a FORTRAN 77 compiler was started at Watcom Systems Inc. Under the leadership of Jack Schueler, Watcom employees and undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo's Co-operative Computer Science program became involved in the creation of the WATFOR-77 compiler. The major work was done by Geno Coschi, Fred Crigger, John Dahms, Jim Graham, Jack Schueler, Anthony Scian and Paul Van Oorschot. They were assisted by Rod Cremasco, John McCormick, David McKee and Brian Stecher. Many of the team members from former compiler projects provided input. These included Bruce Hay, Ian McPhee, Sandra Ward, Jim Welch and Terry Wilkinson.
Unlike previous compilers, a significant portion of WATFOR-77 was written in a portable systems language to ease the implementation of the compiler on other computer systems. Earlier WATFOR compilers were written entirely in machine-dependent assembly language.
Two components of the compiler would not be portable. The code generator translated FORTRAN statements into native computer instructions and store them in memory. The first version of WATFOR-77 generated instructions for the IBM 370 computer architecture. Most of the execution-time support (undefined variable checking, subscript evaluation, intrinsic functions) was written in assembly language for good performance.
In September 1984, the first version was installed at the University of Waterloo for the Department of Computing Services. It was an implementation for IBM 370 computers running the VM/SP CMS
operating system.
A few months earlier, in May 1984, a project started to implement the WATFOR-77 compiler on the IBM Personal Computer. This project included Geno Coschi, Fred Crigger, Tim Galvin, Athos Kasapi, Jack Schueler, Terry Skomorowski and Brian Stecher.
In April 1985, this second version of WATFOR-77 was installed at the University of Waterloo for use by students of the Faculty of Engineering. The compiler could run on a 256K IBM Personal Computer using IBM PC DOS 2.0 and did not require special floating-point hardware.
In the fall of 1985, a Japanese version of WATFOR-77 was delivered to IBM Japan for the IBM JX
Personal Computer. This version produced Japanese language
error messages and supported the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana character sets for variable names and character strings. To support the JX, the Language Reference manual and User's Guide were translated into Japanese.
During the summer of 1986, the IBM PC version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to run on the Unisys ICON
which ran the QNX
operating system. Since QNX was quite different from IBM PC DOS, parts of the run-time system were rewritten. This implementation of WATFOR-77 was made available in September 1986.
During the summer of 1985, a project was started to adapt WATFOR-77 to the Digital Equipment Corporation VAX
computer series running the VMS
operating system. The members of this project included Geno Coschi, Marc Ouellette, Jack Schueler and Terry Skomorowski. This implementation was made available in March 1987.
In the spring of 1988, a version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to the Japanese IBM PS/55 family of personal computers. As on the IBM JX Personal Computer, this version produced Japanese language error messages and supported the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana character sets for variable names and character strings.
Also, in the spring of 1988, a new project was begun to develop an optimizing FORTRAN 77 compiler. This compiler used the code generator from the Watcom C compiler
, which produced superior machine code than other C compilers. The FORTRAN 77 optimizing compiler was first shipped in mid 1990.
In October 1990, the 25th anniversary of WATFOR was celebrated. Many involved in the development of the WATFOR compilers were invited to the University of Waterloo for a reunion.
In spring 1992, a version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to the NEC PC-9801 family of personal computers. This version was similar to the IBM PS/55 version but modified to accommodate architectural differences.
In January 1992, development of a 32-bit version of WATFOR-77 for Intel 80386
and Intel 80486
personal computers began. The first version was shipped in the fall of 1992.
As late as 1995, classes for programming in WATFIV were still being held at the University of Mississippi
, led by Professor Charles H. (Chuckie) Franke.
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
is an implementation of the Fortran
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
computer programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
. It is the successor of WATFOR.
WATFIV was used from the late 1960s into the mid 1970s. WATFIV was in turn succeeded by later versions of WATFOR.
Because it could complete the three usual steps ("compile-link-go") in just one pass, the system became popular for teaching students computer programming.
History
In the early 1960s, newly-formed computer scienceComputer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
departments started university programs to teach computer programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
s. The Fortran
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
language had been developed at IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, but suffered from slow and error-prone three-stage batch processing
Batch processing
Batch processing is execution of a series of programs on a computer without manual intervention.Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without manual intervention, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters...
workflow. In the first stage, the compiler
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
started with source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
and produced object code
Object file
An object file is a file containing relocatable format machine code that is usually not directly executable. Object files are produced by an assembler, compiler, or other language translator, and used as input to the linker....
. In the second stage, a linker constructed a complete program using growing libraries of common functions. Finally, the program was repeatedly executed with data for the typical scientific and business problems of customers. Each step often included a new set of punched card
Punched card
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
s or tape. Students, on the other hand, had very different requirements. Their progams were generally short, but usually contained errors, resulting in time-consuming repetition of the steps and confusing "core dump
Core dump
In computing, a core dump consists of the recorded state of the working memory of a computer program at a specific time, generally when the program has terminated abnormally...
s". Once their prorgams worked correctly, they were turned in and not run again.
In 1961, the University of Wisconsin developed a technology called FORGO for the IBM 1620
IBM 1620
The IBM 1620 was announced by IBM on October 21, 1959, and marketed as an inexpensive "scientific computer". After a total production of about two thousand machines, it was withdrawn on November 19, 1970...
which combined some of the steps.
Similar experiments were carried out at Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
on the IBM 7090
IBM 7090
The IBM 7090 was a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computers and was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation...
in a system called PUFFT.
WATFOR 7040
In summer 1965, four undergraduate students of the University of WaterlooUniversity of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
, Gus German, James G. Mitchell
James G. Mitchell
James "Jim" Mitchell Ph.D. , is a Canadian computer scientist. He has worked on programming language design and implementation , interactive programming systems, dynamic interpretation and compilation, document preparation systems, user interface design, distributed transactional file systems, and...
Richard Shirley and Robert Zarnke, led by Peter Shantz, developed a Fortran compiler for the IBM 7040
IBM 7040
The IBM 7040 was a historic but short-lived model of transistor computer built in the 1960s.It was announced by IBM in December 1961, but did not ship until April, 1963. A later member of the IBM 700/7000 series of scientific computers, it was a scaled down version of the IBM 7090. It was not fully...
computer called WATFOR. Its objectives were fast compilation speed and effective error diagnostics at both compile and execution time. It eliminated the need for a separate linking step and, as a result, FORTRAN programs which contained no syntax errors were placed into immediate execution. Professor J. Wesley Graham (1932–1999) provided leadership throughout the project.
This simple, one-step process allowed non-experienced programmers to learn programming with lower cost in time and computing resources. The version of WATFOR quickly gained popularity and over 75 institutions installed it on their IBM 7040 systems. The distribution of the compiler was handled by Sandra Bruce (née Hope).
WATFOR 360
In 1966, the University planned to replace the 7040 with an IBM System/360 computer, which was much faster but not software compatible. A team of full-time employees and undergraduate students was formed to write an IBM 360 version. The project members, Betty Schmidt, Paul Dirksen, Paul H. CressPaul H. Cress
Paul H. Cress was a Canadian computer scientist.He was a young lecturer in computer science at the University of Waterloo when, starting in 1966, he and his colleague Paul Dirksen led a team of programmers developing a fast Fortran programming language compiler called WATFOR , for the IBM...
, Lothar K. "Ned" Kesselhut, Bill Kindree and Dereck Meek, who were later joined by Mike Doyle, Rod Milne, Ron Hurdal and Lynn Williams, completed 360 WATFOR in the early part of 1967. Many other institutions (universities, colleges, businesses and governmental agencies) started using the WATFOR compiler to meet needs similar to those experienced at the University of Waterloo. The distribution of the software and customer support was carried on by Sandra Ward.
WATFIV
As a result of proposals from the SHARESHARE (computing)
SHARE Inc. is a volunteer-run user group for IBM mainframe computers that was founded in 1955 by Los Angeles-area IBM 701 users. It evolved into a forum for exchanging technical information about programming languages, operating systems, database systems, and user experiences for enterprise users...
user group Fortran committee and others, a new version called WATFIV was produced in 1968. WATFIV introduced new features such as CHARACTER variables and direct-access input-output. The Association for Computing Machinery
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
presented Paul Cress and Paul Dirksen the Grace Murray Hopper Award
Grace Murray Hopper Award
The original Grace Murray Hopper Awards have been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery since 1971. The award goes to a young computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or service contribution.-Recipients:* 1971 Donald E. Knuth* 1972 Paul H. Dirksen* 1972 Paul H...
for contributions to the WATFOR and WATFIV projects in 1972. The WATFIV compiler was included in the DATAPRO Honour Roll for 1975 and 1976.
People involved with maintenance and enhancement included Bernie Murphy, Martin Wiseman and Yvonne Johnson.
Universities and corporations used these compilers and a number of other software products have been developed in the WATFOR tradition.
For example, a version for the COBOL
COBOL
COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments....
programming language was called WATBOL.
Daniel D. McCracken
Daniel D. McCracken
Daniel D. McCracken was a computer scientist in the United States. He was a Professor of Computer Sciences at the City College of New York, and the author of over two dozen textbooks on computer programming. His A Guide to Fortran Programming and its successors were the standard textbooks on...
said "it is no exageration to suggest that WATFOR revolutionized the use of computers in education." At one point, more than 3,000 mini and mainframe computer licenses and over 100,000 microcomputer licenses were held worldwide for this family of software products.
WATFOR-11, -S and -11S
In 1974, a compiler with characteristics similar to the IBM implementation was created for the Digital Equipment CorporationDigital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
PDP-11
PDP-11
The PDP-11 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a succession of products in the PDP series. The PDP-11 replaced the PDP-8 in many real-time applications, although both product lines lived in parallel for more than 10 years...
computer and called WATFOR-11. The team members, Jack Schueler, Jim Welch and Terry Wilkinson, were later joined by Ian McPhee who had added new control statements to the WATFIV compiler for structured programming
Structured programming
Structured programming is a programming paradigm aimed on improving the clarity, quality, and development time of a computer program by making extensive use of subroutines, block structures and for and while loops - in contrast to using simple tests and jumps such as the goto statement which could...
(SP). These new statements included the block IF (later included in the ANSI X3.9-1978 language standard), WHILE, UNTIL, and others. WATFIV-S was announced in 1974 and a few months later, WATFOR-11S (the "S" indicating the new SP features) was also announced. The original SP features were later enhanced with additional statements by Bruce Hay in WATFIV-S in 1980 and by Jack Schueler in WATFOR-11S in 1981.
WATFOR-77
During the 1970s, the ANSI X3J3 subcommittee (the FORTRAN language standard group) developed a new language standard which was officially approved in April, 1978. This standard, designated FORTRAN 77, introduced many new statements into the language. In fact, the previous language standard FORTRAN 66 was a very small document and described, what was in effect, a subset of most implementations of FORTRAN. For example, the WATFIV and WATFOR-11 implementations were based upon the IBM definition of FORTRAN-IV.As programmers used the FORTRAN 77 features, a new compiler was required to combine the advantages of the WATFIV compiler with the new language standard. In January 1983, a project to develop a FORTRAN 77 compiler was started at Watcom Systems Inc. Under the leadership of Jack Schueler, Watcom employees and undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo's Co-operative Computer Science program became involved in the creation of the WATFOR-77 compiler. The major work was done by Geno Coschi, Fred Crigger, John Dahms, Jim Graham, Jack Schueler, Anthony Scian and Paul Van Oorschot. They were assisted by Rod Cremasco, John McCormick, David McKee and Brian Stecher. Many of the team members from former compiler projects provided input. These included Bruce Hay, Ian McPhee, Sandra Ward, Jim Welch and Terry Wilkinson.
Unlike previous compilers, a significant portion of WATFOR-77 was written in a portable systems language to ease the implementation of the compiler on other computer systems. Earlier WATFOR compilers were written entirely in machine-dependent assembly language.
Two components of the compiler would not be portable. The code generator translated FORTRAN statements into native computer instructions and store them in memory. The first version of WATFOR-77 generated instructions for the IBM 370 computer architecture. Most of the execution-time support (undefined variable checking, subscript evaluation, intrinsic functions) was written in assembly language for good performance.
In September 1984, the first version was installed at the University of Waterloo for the Department of Computing Services. It was an implementation for IBM 370 computers running the VM/SP CMS
VM (operating system)
VM refers to a family of IBM virtual machine operating systems used on IBM mainframes System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z and compatible systems, including the Hercules emulator for personal computers. The first version, released in 1972, was VM/370, or officially Virtual Machine Facility/370...
operating system.
A few months earlier, in May 1984, a project started to implement the WATFOR-77 compiler on the IBM Personal Computer. This project included Geno Coschi, Fred Crigger, Tim Galvin, Athos Kasapi, Jack Schueler, Terry Skomorowski and Brian Stecher.
In April 1985, this second version of WATFOR-77 was installed at the University of Waterloo for use by students of the Faculty of Engineering. The compiler could run on a 256K IBM Personal Computer using IBM PC DOS 2.0 and did not require special floating-point hardware.
In the fall of 1985, a Japanese version of WATFOR-77 was delivered to IBM Japan for the IBM JX
IBM JX
The IBM JX was a personal computer released in 1984 into the Japanese, Australian and New Zealand markets. Designed in Japan, it was based on the technology of the IBM PCjr and was designated the IBM 5511.-General:...
Personal Computer. This version produced Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
error messages and supported the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana character sets for variable names and character strings. To support the JX, the Language Reference manual and User's Guide were translated into Japanese.
During the summer of 1986, the IBM PC version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to run on the Unisys ICON
Unisys ICON
The ICON was a computer built specifically for use in schools, to fill a standard created by the Ontario Ministry of Education. They were widely used, mostly in high schools in the mid- to late 1980s, but disappeared after that time with the widespread introduction of PCs and Apple Macintoshes...
which ran the QNX
QNX
QNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...
operating system. Since QNX was quite different from IBM PC DOS, parts of the run-time system were rewritten. This implementation of WATFOR-77 was made available in September 1986.
During the summer of 1985, a project was started to adapt WATFOR-77 to the Digital Equipment Corporation VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
computer series running the VMS
OpenVMS
OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
operating system. The members of this project included Geno Coschi, Marc Ouellette, Jack Schueler and Terry Skomorowski. This implementation was made available in March 1987.
In the spring of 1988, a version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to the Japanese IBM PS/55 family of personal computers. As on the IBM JX Personal Computer, this version produced Japanese language error messages and supported the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana character sets for variable names and character strings.
Also, in the spring of 1988, a new project was begun to develop an optimizing FORTRAN 77 compiler. This compiler used the code generator from the Watcom C compiler
Watcom C compiler
The Watcom C/C++ compiler is a compiler for the computer programming languages C and C++ that produces executable programs for several platforms and operating systems. The code it produces for MS-DOS executes very fast. It was one of the first compilers to support the Intel 80386 "protected mode"...
, which produced superior machine code than other C compilers. The FORTRAN 77 optimizing compiler was first shipped in mid 1990.
In October 1990, the 25th anniversary of WATFOR was celebrated. Many involved in the development of the WATFOR compilers were invited to the University of Waterloo for a reunion.
In spring 1992, a version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to the NEC PC-9801 family of personal computers. This version was similar to the IBM PS/55 version but modified to accommodate architectural differences.
In January 1992, development of a 32-bit version of WATFOR-77 for Intel 80386
Intel 80386
The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...
and Intel 80486
Intel 80486
The Intel 80486 microprocessor was a higher performance follow up on the Intel 80386. Introduced in 1989, it was the first tightly pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to use more than a million transistors, due to a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating point unit...
personal computers began. The first version was shipped in the fall of 1992.
As late as 1995, classes for programming in WATFIV were still being held at the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
, led by Professor Charles H. (Chuckie) Franke.