New HP16C simulator: Test Drive

[Don Shepherd]

(05-10-2021 05:57 PM)billf Wrote:  COMPOOL FTW! My dad was recruited to SDC to work on the three-person JOVIAL team at SDC - that's why he moved to California. I guess his first JOVIAL programming would have been in 1958, or possibly 1959. I think my mother was working on that air traffic control system - her resume says "... experimental programs for air traffic control ..." under 1961-1963. So it got deployed? I actually didn't know that. Thanks!

The people (IBM and subcontractors) that built the enroute air traffic control software in the early 1960's made a remarkable achievement. They answered the question "how do I design, build, and deploy a single software system for 21 unique air traffic control centers and at the same time allow each center to customize its unique geography, airspace, navigation aids, air routes, etc., as required?"

They achieved this using Jovial and COMPOOL, and each center had a person who knew how to modify what they called "adaptation" data. And this software lasted for decades.

Here is an interesting book describing the rebid for the software in 1964, which IBM won, but not without major gnashing of teeth within IBM.