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Category:FOCAL: Difference between revisions
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{{stub}}{{language|FOCAL}}
FOCAL, which is allegedly short for "Formulating On-line Calculations in Algebraic Language", is an imperative, interpreted programming language similar to JOSS. It was first introduced in 1968, and FOCAL-69 was widely used on the PDP-8 minicomputer from Digital Equipment Corporation
Like JOSS and BASIC, FOCAL was not intended to be used for developing large applications; the manual said it was "designed to help scientists, engineers, and students solve numerical problems." The design goals thus emphasize simplicity and accessibility.
FOCAL could also be used satisfactorily on quite small computers: its interpreter runs on a PDP-8 with only 4k words (6k bytes) of storage and still leaves some space for user programs.
==Running FOCAL in a PDP emulator==
There is a tiny [https://jeelabs.org/2016/09/tfoc---pdp-8-in-256-
Compiling and running the emulator on Linux (should also work on macOS):
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==External links==
*[http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/pdp8/focal/DEC-08-AJAB-D_FOCAL_Programming_Manual_Jan70.pdf FOCAL-8 Programming manual] (PDF) from Bitsavers
*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCAL_(programming_language) FOCAL] article in Wikipedia
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