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Space Exploration

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    $\begingroup$ Sir.. You worked on Apollo!!?? In that era? $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 3, 2022 at 3:51
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    $\begingroup$ FORTRAN was the most common, but it was hardly universal. There were many languages around. In particular, JOVIAL was the language of choice for many embedded aerospace systems like this. FORTRAN, designed for heavy duty numerics, was not a good choice for embedded programming. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOVIAL $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 3, 2022 at 15:31
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    $\begingroup$ This answer is confusing. You're claiming you saw AGC code that was compiled using FORTRAN? Or that you worked on Apollo more generally and saw some FORTRAN code being used on the project elsewhere (ie: on mainframes, etc)? Are you aware of FORTRAN code being compiled specifically for the AGC? This seems to contradict other reliable sources... $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 4, 2022 at 13:38
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    $\begingroup$ As said, I can only respond re: the question about the high level language in use at the time. All code I saw and was involved with was fortran. I only had involvement with scientific calcs, I had no experience with the AGC. The purpose of a compiler is to reduce code written in a high level language to machine/assembly instructions. I think the AGC code was written in assenbly. I would look to some of the MIT docs as they were the key developers of the AGC $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 4, 2022 at 14:32
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    $\begingroup$ @tckosvic Ok, that makes more sense. The question is asking specifically about the AGC so this answer seems to read as though you're implying that you yourself were working on the AGC and that you saw FORTRAN code compiled for it, which makes it a bit misleading given that every other source available suggests the programs written for the AGC itself were written strictly in assembly. This doesn't really answer the question, then, and is more of an interesting sidenote. $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 4, 2022 at 14:42