I heard the same story about JOVIAL being an acronym for "Jules' Own ... ". Also heard that Jules designed it while walking the beach (forgot which beach). Santa Monica, perhaps?
I did some programming in JOVIAL while working on some software for the central computer on the AWACS aircraft. IBM's Federal Systems Division had the contract for the central processor and its operating system. Got to fly many hours on the first AWACS. Got my IBM Flight Test Wings award for flying more than 50 hours flight testing IBM hardware/software. Also got flight (hazardous duty) pay. The most peculiar thing to me about JOVIAL was there was no provision for I/O. You had to use the DIRECT function which dropped you into Assembler Language. You performed the I/O in assembler and returned to JOVIAL until the next need for I/O. 73, Jim - W4BQP K2 #2268, KX3 #2875 First licensed in 1953 On 4/4/2014 5:39 PM, Fred Jensen wrote: > Hmmm ... In the days of "Big Blue Iron," I don't think I ever saw a > computer room that didn't have some card boxes on top of a file > cabinet near the doors with a sign, "FOR 1401 EMULATION ON MIDS." > > Regarding JOVIAL, said to be an acronym from, "Jules' Own Version of > the International Algorithmic Language," its syntax is rampant with > dollar sign characters. "Jules" was Dr. Jules Schwartz. Statements > end with them, subscripts are surrounded by them, they're everywhere. > > JOVIAL was for many years the official USAF language for operational > software [may still be for all I know, Ada never seemed to get enough > airspeed for takeoff]. It was a good definition of "cash cow" for him > and his company. I met Dr. Schwartz at a conference once, and asked > him if there was any significance to the prevalence of the dollar sign > in JOVIAL syntax. He just grinned at me. > > I've occasionally wondered if Eric and Jules were related, however > it's a pretty common name. > > 73, > > Fred K6DGW > - Northern California Contest Club > - CU in the 2014 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 2014 > - www.cqp.org > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
