The History of NOMAD: A Fourth Generation Language

Author

Rawlings, Nicholas

Volume

36

Issue

1

fYear

2014

fDate

Jan.-Mar. 2014

Firstpage

30

Lastpage

38

Abstract

Nomad, a major 4th generation language, was designed and implemented by National CSS, a principal time-sharing company in the 1970s. The author, one of the team members who developed Nomad, provides the background of the company and describes their use of Ramis as a significant contributor to the company\´s revenue. After Mathematica\´s decision to change the price of Ramis, the decision was made to set up "skunk works" to build not just a replacement, but a far better product. The author then describes the Nomad development process, the contributions made by the team members, how the product was named, how it was used, and its history up to the present.

Keywords

programming languages; software development management; Mathematica; NOMAD development process; NOMAD fourth generation language; National CSS; Ramis; principal time-sharing company; skunk works; Cascading style sheets; Computer languages; Databases; History; Operating systems; Programming; Focus; IBI; Mathematica; National CSS; Nomad; Ramis; VP/CSS; history of computing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1058-6180

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MAHC.2014.10

Filename

6774378