FOR TRANSIT (also incorrectly FORTRANSIT) is a subset of the FORTRAN

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming l ...

for the

IBM 650 The IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine is an early digital computer produced by IBM in the mid-1950s. It was the first mass produced computer in the world. Almost 2,000 systems were produced, the last in 1962, and it was the firs ...

Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine, developed by a group led by

Bob Bemer Robert William Bemer (February 8, 1920 – June 22, 2004) was a computer scientist best known for his work at IBM during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Early life and education Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Bemer graduated from Cranbr ...

. FORTRAN, the first

high-level programming language In computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ''elements'', be easier to ...

, was developed for the

IBM 704 The IBM 704 is a large digital mainframe computer introduced by IBM in 1954. It was the first mass-produced computer with hardware for floating-point arithmetic. The IBM 704 ''Manual of operation'' states: The type 704 Electronic Data-Proc ...

in 1957, at the same time IBM wanted to provide something similar for customers of the older, less powerful, but popular 650—eventually over 2000 650s were sold. FOR TRANSIT was upward compatible with 704 FORTRAN with some restrictions. For example variable names could only be five characters rather than six, and arrays could have a maximum of two dimensions instead of three. FOR TRANSIT was a Multi-pass compiler. The first pass translated the source to an intermediate language, IT (Internal Translator), written by Alan Perlis and others at the

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

in 1957. The second pass compiled the IT into SOAP assembler code, and finally the SOAP code was assembled into the

machine language In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a ver ...

object program. FOR TRANSIT was never ported beyond the 650, as newer machines had the resources to run a full FORTRAN compiler. The name ''FOR TRANSIT'' might have one or more of three meanings: * FORTRAN-S(oap)-IT, describing the translation process * FOR TRANSIT(ion), indicating that it was intended to ease upgrades to the 704 * FORTRAN's IT, in the sense of adding a FORTRAN front-end to the IT compiler

References

External links

* Fortran programming language family IBM software 1957 introductions IBM mainframe software {{Software-stub