Editing Klerer–May System (section)

{{short description|Programming language oriented to numerical scientific programming}}
The '''Klerer–May System''' is a [[programming language]] developed in the mid-1960s, oriented to [[Numerical analysis|numerical]] [[Computational science|scientific]] programming, whose most notable feature is its two-dimensional syntax based on traditional [[mathematical notation]].

[[File:Example of a statement in the Klerer-May programming system.png|thumbnail|Example of a statement in the Klerer–May programming language]]

For input and output, the Klerer–May system used a [[Friden Flexowriter]] modified to allow half-line motions for subscripts and superscripts.<ref name="KL65a">{{cite journal | title=A user oriented programming language |author1=Klerer, Melvin |author2=May, Jack | journal=The Computer Journal | year=1965 | volume=8 | issue=2 | pages=103–109 | doi=10.1093/comjnl/8.2.103| doi-access=free }}</ref> The character set included digits, upper-case letters, subsets of 14 lower-case Latin letters and 18 Greek letters, arithmetic operators (<code>+</code> <code>−</code> <code>×</code> <code>/</code> <code>|</code>) and punctuation (<code>.</code> <code>,</code> <code>(</code> <code>)</code>), and eight special line-drawing characters (resembling  <code>╲</code> <code>╱</code> <code>⎜</code> <code>_</code> <code>⎨</code> <code>⎬</code> <code>˘</code> <code>⁔</code>) used to construct multi-line brackets and symbols for [[summation]], [[Product sign#Capital Pi notation|products]], [[Square root|roots]], and for multi-line [[Division (mathematics)|division]] or fractions.<ref name="S69">{{cite book | title=Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals | publisher=Prentice-Hall | author=Sammet, Jean | year=1969 | pages=284–294 | isbn=0-13-729988-5}}</ref>
The system was intended to be forgiving of input mistakes, and easy to learn; its reference manual was only two pages.<ref name="KL65b">{{cite book | title=Reference Manual | publisher=Columbia University |author1=Klerer, Melvin |author2=May, Jack | year=1965 | location=Hudson Labs, Dobbs Ferry, NY}}</ref>

The system was developed by [[Melvin Klerer]] and [[Jack May (computer scientist)|Jack May]] at [[Columbia University]]'s Hudson Laboratories in [[Dobbs Ferry, New York]], for the [[Office of Naval Research]], and ran on [[GE-200 series]] computers.<ref name="S69" />