Atlas Computer: Revised report on the algorithmic ALGOL 60 (LIST CS 377)

The report gives a complete defining description of the international algorithmic language ALGOL 60. This is a language suitable for expressing a large class of numerical processes in a form sufficiently concise for direct automatic translation into the language of programmed automatic computers. The introduction contains an account of the preparatory work leading up to the final conference, where the language was defined. In addition the notions reference language, publication language, and hardware representations are explained. In the first chapter a survey of the basic constituents and features of the language is given, and the formal notation, by which the syntactic structure is defined, is explained. The second chapter lists all the basic symbols, and the syntactic units known as identifiers, numbers, and strings are defined. Further, some important notions such as quantity and value are defined. The third chapter explains the rules for forming expressions, and the meaning of these expressions. Three different types of expressions exist: arithmetic, Boolean (logical), and designational. The fourth chapter describes the operational units of the language, known as statements. The basic statements are: assignment statements (evaluation of a formula), go to statements (explicit break of the sequence of execution of statements), dummy statements, and procedure statements (call for execution of a closed process, defined by a procedure declaration). The formation of more complex structures, having statement character, is explained. These include: conditional statements, for statements, compound statements, and blocks. In the fifth chapter the units known as declarations, serving for defining permanent properties of the units entering into a process described in the language, are defined. The report ends with two detailed examples of the use of the language, and an alphabetic index of definitions.Scanned 2017-09 by http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9842-9718 at The University of Manchester, text-recognition and PDF bookmarks created with Adobe Acrobat DC. The initial pages by International Computers and Tabulators Limited show ALGOL 60 modifications for the I.C.T. Atlas Computer, November 1964. Second half is "Revised report on the algorithmic language ALGOL 60 " aka doi:10.1093/comjnl/5.4.349 This revised report is reprinted by permission of the International Federation for Information Processing, who ask us to state that reproduction _of the whole text only_ is permitted without formality