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Algo

As mentioned earlier the Bendix Corporation produced a compiler for the G15. It was called "Algo" and was the first implementation produced by private industry of the Algol language. It was documented in a well-written and attractively produced manual of 27 pages. The originators of Algo, or at least the persons who wrote the manual, were enthusiastic about the simplification in programming which the language would produce as is shown by the Introduction which begins as follows:

The Algo language closely parallels Algebra and may be learned in a few hours. The similarity may be seen by examining a few relationships. For example, to add quantity x to quantity y, the relationship in Algo language is: x + y; similarly,
      to subtract:                         x - y
      to divide:                             x / y
      to find the sine of x:             sin x
      to find the logarithm of x:     log x
Thus, without a special knowledge of programming for electronic computers, anyone with a background of high school Algebra may express a problem in the Algo language for the G-15 computer. ...

The Algo program, which has not been debugged, for the sample problem is shown here. 

        001.  TITLE Sample Program
	002.  FORMAt A(S3DPT), B(S3DP2DT)
	003.  BEGIN
	004.  n = 0
	005.  sum = 0
	006.  max = 0
	007.  A1: BELLS(2)
	008.  price = KEYBD
	009.  IF price > 0 BEGIN
	010.  n = n + 1
	011.  sum = sum + price
	012.  IF price > max
	013.  max = price
	014.  GO TO A1 END
	015.  PRINT(A) = n
	016.  PRINT(B) = sum
	017.  PRINT(B) = max
	018.  CARR(2)
	019.  END
Bendix G15 Algo
Only a few comments need be made. Variable names could be of any length but only the first five characters were significant. If the test in an IF statement was true, the next statement in sequence was executed; if not, the next statement was skipped. The statement following any statement could be a compound statement delimited by "BEGIN and END parentheses" which were distinguished in the manual from the "BEGIN and END statements" which delimited programs. Both uses of the pair BEGIN and END appear in the sample program. The decimal point appeared on the keyboard as a "small, hollow circle" so a decimal point in numbers was called a "hollow point".

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