Business and engineering enriched FORTRAN (BEEF)

Abstract

In April, 1961, the Westinghouse Baltimore Defense and Space Center established a truly integrated Information Processing Department with the responsibility of serving the combined needs of scientific research and engineering computer applications, as well as management information systems and business data processing. A single high-speed, large scale, binary, fixed-word length computer was selected as the heart of the computer facilities to be used. Personnel previously using similar equipment in Westinghouse had for a number of years used FORTRAN for programming the solution process of a broad spectrum of engineering work in the area of military electronics. Obviously, FORTRAN would continue to be used as a programming language in this area of activity. The limitations of FORTRAN in its original form as a data processing language were, of course, recognized, however, the introduction of another language was not considered economically feasible or desirable in the light of the heavy engineering FORTRAN load. Instead, it was decided to augment FORTRAN with a package of CALLable subroutines suitable for the new problem area. What has been developed is an enriched FORTRAN suitable for a much larger spectrum of applications than the original algebraic language. This enriched machine independent programming language is referred to as BEEF for Business and Engineering Enriched FORTRAN. This approach to the problem has also been taken by several computer installations throughout the country. In particular, Rocketdyne has implemented a system designated as COMFORTII, while the Sandia Corporation in an article in the Communications of the ACM in July 1962 outlined and commented on several of their FORTRAN callable data processing subroutines.