TIDE(ID:5861/tid001)

English commercial autocode 

for Tube Investments Data Engine (?)

English Autocode by Tube Investements 1960
References:
  • Humby E. "TIDE, A Commercial Compiler for the IBM 550" pp207-219 view details
          in Goodman, Richard (ed) "Annual Review in Automatic Programming "(1) 1960 Pergamon Press, Oxford view details
  • "TIDE - a commercial compiler for IBM 650" Tube Investments Computer Unit, The Airport, Walsall, Stafs, UK view details
          in Goodman, Richard (ed) "Annual Review in Automatic Programming "(1) 1960 Pergamon Press, Oxford view details
  • Blum, E. K. review of Goodman 1960 view details Abstract: This volume contains the 18 papers presented to the Conference on Automatic Programming of Digital Computers held in April 1959 at Brighton Technical College. The papers are, for the most part, brief descriptions of various automatic programming systems in use in Great Britain at the time of the conference. The following sample of titles gleaned from the table of contents will convey some idea of the scope and content of the papers: "The MARK 5 System of Automatic Coding for TREAC"; "PEGASUS: An Example of an Autocoded Program for Sales Analysis and Forecasting"; "The Application of Formula Translation to Automatic Coding of Ordinary Differential Equations"; "Further DEUCE Interpretive Programs and some Translating Programs"; and "Automatic Programming and Business Applications."

    Most of the papers are written in a style and manner which seem to have become universally accepted for papers on computer programming, at least in the English-speaking world and probably in others. This style insists on a liberal dosage of impressively detailed flow charts which, considering the well-known and understandable reluctance of programmers to read their own programs much less those of others, one suspects most readers hastily skip over, willingly granting their authenticity. The flow charts are invariably accompanied by long lists of special instructions described in the private patois of the author, who seems blissfully unaware or unconcerned that his specially constructed vocabulary of acronyms may present;. rough going to the reader from the inlying provinces. Finally, the style demands long and wearisome descriptions of basic concepts (e.g., subroutine; symbolic instruction, etc.) long since familiar to the average reader, some indication of difficulties as yet to be surmounted (e.g., automatic storage allocation; easier debugging; et al). Nevertheless, the volume does give some idea of the status of automatic programming systems in Great Britain in early 1959. It also contains a concise description of the 709 SHARE operating system, and another brief account of FLOW-MATIC and MATH-MATIC. There are two interesting appendices worthy of mention. Appendix One consists of reprints of two papers by the late A. M. Turing, "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem", in which the "Turing machine" was conceived, and a brief corrective note on the same subject. Appendix Two contains the "Preliminary Report of ~ ACM-GAMM Committee on an International Algebraic Language", since published elsewhere.

    The reviewer cannot suppress the question of whether this sort of material (Appendices excepted), so soon obsolescent or obsolete and so difficult to present adequately in short papers, deserves the effort and expense required to reproduce it between the bound hard covers of a handsome book.

          in ACM Computing Reviews 2(03) May-June 1961 view details