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ALGOL

I recently created an ALGOL section at the Computer History Museum’s Software Preservation Group web site, covering the language standardization efforts — for ALGOL 58 (also known as the International Algebraic Language), ALGOL 60, and ALGOL 68 — and also covering many implementations, dialects, and offshoots, complete with source code, manuals, and papers for many of these. The history of ALGOL has attracted many writers, and the final section of the web site links to many of their papers.

The ALGOL 58/60 implementations for which I’ve been able to find source code for include:

  • Burroughs 205 (Knuth)
  • Burroughs 220 (Erdwinn et al.)
  • Burroughs B-5500
  • DEC PDP-10 (Habermann et al.)
  • Electrologica X1 (Dijkstra and Zonneveld – Mathematisch Centrum)
  • Electrologica X8 (Kruseman Aretz – Mathematisch Centrum)
  • Electrologica X8 (Bron et al. – Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven)
  • Elliot 803 (Hoare et al.)
  • English Electric Whetstone (Randell and Russell)
  • G.E.C. process control computer (Higman)
  • Regnecentralen GIER (Naur et al.)
  • Stantec Zebra (van der Mey – Netherlands PTT)

The appendices to Maurice Halstead’s book Machine-Independent Programming (Spartan Books, 1962) contain compiler source listings of Neliac (an ALGOL 58 dialect) for the UNIVAC M-460, IBM 704, and CDC 1604.

I also found compiler source code and listings for several versions of ALGOL W.

I’ve just gotten started looking for ALGOL 68 implementations.

I welcome your comments, corrections, and suggestions for the ALGOL web site.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at 4:12 pm and is filed under ALGOL, Software history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “ALGOL”

  1. John Cowan says:
    5/17/2010 at 7:28 pm

    Are you only interested in implementations for old computers? GNU Algol, otherwise called Marst, is a full implementation of Algol 60 (the modified report) that translates it into C, and there is the NASE Algol 60 interpreter as well.

  2. Paul McJones says:
    5/17/2010 at 7:53 pm

    John,

    I’m especially interested in old implementations. For completeness, I’ll probably add GNU Algol/Marst and the NASE Algol 60 interpreter. Thanks very much for mentioning them.

    Paul

  3. andrey (c) adtrefer says:
    6/18/2010 at 12:40 pm

    Old compilers must died. Try to make new compiler for Algol family. Algol 68 genie has critical errors, so you have chance to make good compiler.

  4. Marcel van der Veer says:
    6/26/2010 at 3:50 am

    Algol 68 Genie is in continuous development. Many are using it to run either vintage programs or new code. If someone thinks it contains a “critical error”, please report it to me so it can be corrected. The quality of open source software depends on useful feedback of its users.

    Thank you,
    Marcel

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