Short Code (computer language)

Last updated
Short Code
Developer William F Schmitt, A. B. Tonik, J. R. Logan
First appeared1950 (1950)
Influenced by
ENIAC Short Code
Influenced
Intermediate programming language, OMNIBAC Symbolic Assembler

Short Code was one of the first higher-level languages developed for an electronic computer. [1] Unlike machine code, Short Code statements represented mathematic expressions rather than a machine instruction. Also known as automatic programming, the source code was not compiled but executed through an interpreter to simplify the programming process. The execution time was, naturally, much slower. [2]

Contents

History

Short Code was proposed by John Mauchly in 1949 and originally known as Brief Code. William Schmitt implemented a version of Brief Code in 1949 for the BINAC computer, though it was never debugged and tested. The following year Schmitt implemented a new version of Brief Code for the UNIVAC I, where it was now known as Short Code (also Short Order Code). A revised version of Short Code was developed in 1952 for the Univac II by A. B. Tonik and J. R. Logan. [3]

While Short Code represented expressions, the representation itself was not direct and required a process of manual conversion. Elements of an expression were represented by two-character codes and then divided into 6-code groups in order to conform to the 12-byte words used by BINAC and Univac computers. [4] For example, the expression

a=(b+c)/b*c

was converted to Short Code by a sequence of substitutions and a final regrouping:

X3=(X1+Y1)/X1*Y1substitutevariablesX30309X107Y10204X1Y1substituteoperatorsandparentheses.Notethatmultiplicationisrepresentedbyjuxtaposition.
 07Y10204X1Y1                      group into 12-byte words.  0000X30309X1 

Along with basic arithmetic, Short Code allowed for branching and calls to a library of functions. The language was interpreted and ran about 50 times slower than machine code. [5]

See also

References

  1. Sebesta, R. W. Concepts of Programming languages. 2006; M6 14:18 pp. 44. ISBN   0-321-33025-0.
  2. Sebesta, R. W. Concepts of Programming languages. 11E; Chapter 2, pp. 39. ISBN   978-0133943023.
  3. Schmitt, William F. The UNIVAC SHORT CODE. Annals of the History of Computing (1988) 10:pages 7–8.
  4. Schmitt, William F. The UNIVAC SHORT CODE. Annals of the History of Computing (1988) 10:page 15.
  5. Malik, Masud Ahmad. Evolution of the High Level Programming Languages: A Critical Perspective. ACM SIGPLAN Notices (December 1998) 33(12) page 74.