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WATFIV ( Waterloo FORTRAN IV), developed at the University of Waterloo, Canada is an implementation of the Fortran computer programming language. It is the successor of WATFOR.
WATFIV was used from the late 1960s into the mid-1980s. WATFIV was in turn succeeded by later versions of WATFOR. Because it could complete the three usual steps ("compile-link-go") in just one pass, the system became popular for teaching students computer programming.
In 1961, the University of Wisconsin developed a technology called FORGO for the IBM 1620 which combined some of the steps. Similar experiments were carried out at Purdue University on the IBM 7090 in a system called PUFFT.
This simple, one-step process allowed non-experienced programmers to learn programming with lower cost in time and computing resources.
WATFOR quickly gained popularity and over 75 institutions installed it on their IBM 7040 systems. The distribution of the compiler was handled by Sandra Bruce (née Hope).
WATFIV was pronounced as "WHAT FIVE", but, as was realized at the time, could also (almost) still be pronounced as "WHAT FOR", as in WAT-F-IV (Waterloo Fortran IV).
Universities and corporations used these compilers and a number of other software products have been developed in the WATFOR tradition.
For example, a version for the COBOL programming language is called WATBOL.
As programmers used the FORTRAN 77 features, a new compiler was required to combine the advantages of the WATFIV compiler with the new language standard. In January 1983, a project to develop a FORTRAN 77 compiler was started at Watcom. Under the leadership of Jack Schueler, Watcom employees and undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo's Co-operative Computer Science program became involved in the creation of the WATFOR-77 compiler. The major work was done by Geno Coschi, Fred Crigger, John Dahms, Jim Graham, Jack Schueler, Anthony Scian and Paul Van Oorschot. They were assisted by Rod Cremasco, John McCormick, David McKee and Brian Stecher. Many of the team members from former compiler projects provided input. These included Bruce Hay, Ian McPhee, Sandra Ward, Jim Welch and Terry Wilkinson.
Unlike previous compilers, a significant portion of WATFOR-77 was written in a portable systems language to ease the implementation of the compiler on other computer systems. Earlier WATFOR compilers were written entirely in machine-dependent assembly language.
Two components of the compiler are not portable. The code generator translates FORTRAN statements into native computer instructions and stores them in memory. The first version of WATFOR-77 generates instructions for the IBM 370 computer architecture. Most of the execution-time support (undefined variable checking, subscript evaluation, intrinsic functions) was written in assembly language for good performance. In September 1984, the first version was installed at the University of Waterloo for the Department of Computing Services. It was an implementation for IBM 370 computers running the VM/SP CMS operating system.
A few months earlier, in May 1984, a project started to implement the WATFOR-77 compiler on the IBM Personal Computer. This project included Geno Coschi, Fred Crigger, Tim Galvin, Athos Kasapi, Jack Schueler, Terry Skomorowski and Brian Stecher. In April 1985, this second version of WATFOR-77 was installed at the University of Waterloo for use by students of the Faculty of Engineering. The compiler can run on a 256K IBM Personal Computer using IBM PC DOS 2.0 and does not require special floating-point hardware.
In the fall of 1985, a Japanese version of WATFOR-77 was delivered to IBM Japan for the IBM JX Personal Computer. This version produces Japanese language error messages and supported the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana character sets for variable names and character strings. To support the JX, the Language Reference manual and User's Guide were translated into Japanese. Another version of WATFOR-77 with the same features mentioned above was also developed for Japanese IBM PS/55 family of personal computers in Spring 1988.
During the summer of 1986, the IBM PC version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to run on the Unisys ICON which runs the QNX operating system. Since QNX is quite different from IBM PC DOS, parts of the run-time system were rewritten. This implementation of WATFOR-77 was made available in September 1986.
During the summer of 1985, a project was started to adapt WATFOR-77 to the Digital Equipment Corporation VAX computer series running the OpenVMS operating system. The members of this project included Geno Coschi, Marc Ouellette, Jack Schueler and Terry Skomorowski. This implementation was made available in March 1987.
Also, in the spring of 1988, a new project was begun to develop an optimizing FORTRAN 77 compiler. This compiler uses the code generator from the Watcom C compiler, which produces superior machine code to other C compilers. The FORTRAN 77 optimizing compiler was first shipped in mid-1990.
In October 1990, the 25th anniversary of WATFOR was celebrated. Many involved in the development of the WATFOR compilers were invited to the University of Waterloo for a reunion.
In spring 1992, a version of WATFOR-77 was adapted to the NEC PC-9801 family of personal computers. This version was similar to the IBM PS/55 version but modified to accommodate architectural differences. In January 1992, development of a 32-bit version of WATFOR-77 for Intel 80386 and Intel 80486 personal computers began. The first version was shipped in the fall of 1992.
As late as 1995, classes for programming in WATFIV were still being held at the University of Mississippi, led by Professor Charles H. (Chuckie) Franke.
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