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Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment
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<h2 id="description">Description</h2> <p>Each statement was designed to correspond to a flowchart operation and consisted of a numeric line number, an operation, and the required operands: </p> 7 + A B C 10 SIN X Z <p>The final variable specified the destination for the computation. The above program corresponds in functionality to the later BASIC program: </p> 7 LET C=A+B 10 LET Z=SIN(X) <p>DOPE might be the first programming language to require every statement to have a <a href="/facts/Line_number/pVClyxjN">line number</a>, predating <a href="/facts/JOSS/GXAbsQHY">JOSS</a> and BASIC. </p><p>The language was case insensitive. </p><p>Variable names were a single letter A to Z, or a letter followed by a digit (A0 to Z9). As with <a href="/facts/Fortran/m1KqjcMU">Fortran</a>, different letters represented different variable types. Variables starting with letters A to D were <a href="/facts/Floating_point/eIckahxe">floating point</a>, as were variables from I to Z; variables E, F, G, and H each were defined as vectors with components from 1 to 16. </p> Caption text<table><tbody><tr><th>Operation</th><th>Function</th><th>Number of operands</th></tr><tr><td>A</td><td>Ask (prompt for input)</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>C</td><td><a href="/facts/Arithmetic_IF/gJaTb804">Arithmetic IF</a></td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>E</td><td>End loop</td><td>Unknown</td></tr><tr><td>J</td><td>Input into variable</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>N</td><td>Print a newline</td><td>Unknown</td></tr><tr><td>P</td><td>Print a variable</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>T</td><td>Jump</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Z</td><td>For loop</td><td>Unknown</td></tr><tr><td>+</td><td>Addition</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>-</td><td>Subtraction</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>*</td><td>Multiplication</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>/</td><td>Division</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>EXP</td><td>E to the power</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>LOG</td><td><a href="/facts/Logarithm/QeXaV97q">Logarithm</a></td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>SIN</td><td><a href="/facts/Sine/gQ6LXK8z">Sine</a></td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>SQR</td><td><a href="/facts/Square_root/AfrzfBdQ">Square root</a></td><td>2</td></tr></tbody></table> <p>The language was used by only one freshman computing class.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a> Kemeny collaborated with high school student Sidney Marshall (taking freshman calculus) to develop the language.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="legacy">Legacy</h2> <p>According to <a href="/facts/Thomas_E._Kurtz/Qq8PIore">Thomas Kurtz</a>, a co-inventor of BASIC, "Though not a success in itself, DOPE presaged BASIC. DOPE provided default vectors, default printing formats, and general input formats. Line numbers doubled as jump targets." </p><p>The language had a number of other features and innovations that were carried over into BASIC: </p> <ol><li>Variable names were either a letter or a letter followed by a digit</li> <li>Arrays (vectors) did not have to be declared and had a default size (16 instead of 10)</li> <li>Every line required a numeric label*</li> <li>Lines were sorted in numeric order*</li> <li>Every line begins with a keyword*</li> <li>Function names were three letters long*</li> <li>The only loop construct was a for-loop</li></ol> <p>*Unlike either <a href="/facts/Fortran/m1KqjcMU">Fortran</a> or <a href="/facts/Algol_60/QnpxUYQm">Algol 60</a>. </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/DARSIMCO/KnCrduPo">DARSIMCO</a>, 'Dartmouth Simplified Code', a 1956 assembler macro language</li> <li><a href="/facts/Dartmouth_ALGOL_30/MwyjkIhT">Dartmouth ALGOL 30</a>, a compiler developed by Dartmouth for the LGP-30</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Kurtz, Thomas (1981). "BASIC". History of programming languages. History of programming languages I. ACM. pp. 517-518 517–518. doi:10.1145/800025.1198404. ISBN 0-12-745040-8. <a href="0-12-745040-8" target="_blank">0-12-745040-8</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Williams, Michael (November 1, 1985). A History of Computing Technology (1st ed.). Prentice-Hall. p. 432. ISBN 0133899179. <a href="0133899179" target="_blank">0133899179</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Application to the National Science Foundation, Kurtz, Rieser, and Meck, cited in Rankin, pages 20-21 <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Kemeny, John G.; Kurtz, Thomas E. (1985). Back To BASIC: The History, Corruption, and Future of the Language. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. 141 pp. ISBN 0-201-13433-0 <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>