A Brief History of the Japanese Computer Industry Before 1985
Some of the software packages used on the 7040/1401 system in the mid-1960s were MAP (machine assembly Program), Fortran II and Cobol compilers, an ALGOL compiler from the University of Grenoble, the LP I11 linear programming system, the BMD Biomedical Statistical Package, and the AGGIE student Fortran I1 compiler, which was soon replaced by WATFOR from the University of Waterloo. One system implemented at the University of Alberta was a simulator for the MENTOR and MENTORSAP languages which were used briefly to teach simplified machine language and assembly language programming. Basic played a minor role in the department until personal computers came into use in the mid 1980s. Neither the first Basic interpreter that was available in the 1960s nor Waterloo Basic, which replaced it in the early 1970s received much use. However, in the 1980s a subset of Basic emphasizing structured programming concepts began to be taught in some courses. The Fortran language has been in continuous use since it frst became available at the University of Alberta on the IBM 1620. Fortran II was soon replaced by various implementations of Fortran IV including WATFOR and WATFIV from the University of Waterloo and other versions more suitable for production work, and finally by Fortran 77 in the 1980s. Fortran was used for a number of years as the fmt conventional hgher-level language in all courses. Only in the past year has it been replaced by Pascal in ENCMP 100 Computer Programming for Engineers, which is taught jointly with the Faculty of Engineering. In about 1970 Algol W replaced Fortran as a first language for computing science students. It was used throughout the 1970s when it was then replaced by Pascal, ‘which was used as an introductory language until 1994 when it was replaced by Modula-2. Both Algol W and Pascal not only encouraged the use of structured progrmming techniques but also introduced the notion of a formal description of a programming language. TEXTFORM, an extremely large, complex and even cumbersome word processing and typesetting package implemented by the department of Computing Services was used in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Although primitive when judged by today’s standards for word processors, it was used by countless numbers of faculty, staff and students throughout the University and provided almost all of them with their first introduction to word processing. The introduction of the personal computer in the 1980s had a profound effect on the teaching and practice of programming. The implementation of a language became a programming environment consisting of a compiler or interpreter, or both, together with an editor, debugging tools, program library, online help and tutorial. Many students purchased or had access to computers and could do many of their assignments independently of the University’s computing facilities.