UNCOL, UNiversal Computer Oriented Language, was a proposed universal intermediate language for compilers. In Computer science, an intermediate language is the language of an Abstract machine designed to aid in the analysis of Computer programs The term comes A compiler is a Computer program (or set of programs that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another It was never fully specified or implemented; in many ways it was more a concept than a language.
UNCOL was intended to make compilers economically available for each new instruction set architecture and programming language. An instruction set is a list of all the instructions and all their variations that a processor can execute In Computer engineering, computer architecture is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of a Computer system A programming language is an Artificial language that can be used to write programs which control the behavior of a machine particularly a Computer. Each machine architecture would require just one compiler back end, and each programming language would require one compiler front end. This was a very ambitious goal in 1961 because compiler technology was in its infancy, and little was standardized in computer hardware and software.
The concept of such a universal intermediate language is old: the SHARE report (1958) already says "[it has] been discussed by many independent persons as long ago as 1954. SHARE Inc is a volunteer-run user group for IBM Mainframe computers that was founded in 1955 by Los Angeles-area IBM 701 users " Macrakis (1993) summarizes its fate:
UNCOL was an ambitious effort for the early 1960’s. An attempt to solve the compiler-writing problem, it ultimately failed because language and compiler technology were not yet mature.
In the 1970’s, compiler-compilers ultimately contributed to solving the problem that UNCOL set itself: the economical production of compilers for new languages and new machines. A compiler-compiler or compiler generator is a tool that creates a parser, interpreter, or Compiler from some form of formal description
UNCOL is sometimes used as a generic term for the idea of a universal intermediate language. The Architecture Neutral Distribution Format is an example of an UNCOL in this sense. The Architecture Neutral Distribution Format ( ANDF) is a technology allowing common "shrink wrapped" binary application programs to be distributed for use on conformant
References
- Melvin E. Conway, "Proposal for an UNCOL", Communications of the ACM 1:3:5 (1958).
- Jean E. Sammet, Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals, Prentice-Hall, 1969. Chapter X. 2: UNCOL (Significant Unimplemented Concepts), p. 708.
- SHARE Ad-Hoc Committee on Universal Languages (J. SHARE Inc is a volunteer-run user group for IBM Mainframe computers that was founded in 1955 by Los Angeles-area IBM 701 users Strong, J. Olsztyn, J. Wegstein, O. Mock, A. Tritter, T. Steel), "The Problem of Programming Communication with Changing Machines", Communications of the ACM 1:8:12 (August 1958) and 1:9:9 (September 1958).
- Stavros Macrakis, "From UNCOL to ANDF: Progress in Standard Intermediate Languages", White Paper, Open Software Foundation Research Institute, RI-ANDF-TP2-1, January, 1992. The Open Software Foundation ( OSF) was an organization founded in 1988 to create an Open standard for an implementation of the Unix operating Available at CiteSeer
- T. B. Steel, Jr. , "UNCOL: Universal Computer Oriented Language Revisited", Datamation (Jan/Feb 1960), p. 18.
- T. B. Steel, Jr. , "A First Version of UNCOL", Proc. Western Joint Computer Conference 19:371 (Los Angeles, May 9-11, 1961).
- T. B. Steel, Jr. , "UNCOL: The Myth and the Fact", Annual Review in Automatic Programming 2:325 (1961).
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