Introduction to the SYMBOL 2R programming language

Abstract

The SYMBOL programming language (SPL) is not only an important feature of the SYMBOL 2R Computer System, but also was the starting point for the design of the system. SPL was designed as a general-purpose, higher-level programming language. After the language design was completed, the hardware of the SYMBOL computer was then designed to provide a hardware implementation of the language.This paper is intended primarily to provide a general overview of SPL as context for the companion papers (1,3,6). The reader is referred to (5) for a complete description of SPL, to (2) for a discussion of the design decisions involved in the creation of SPL, and to (4) for an overview of the entire SYMBOL project.