JOSS
programming language
JOSS (acronym for JOHNNIAC Open Shop System) was one of the first interactive, time-sharing programming languages. It pioneered many features that would become common in languages from the 1960s into the 1980s, including the use of line numbers as both editing instructions and targets for branches, statements predicated by Boolean decisions, and a built-in source-code editor that can perform instructions in direct or immediate mode, what they termed a conversational user interface.
JOSS was initially implemented on the JOHNNIAC machine at RAND Corporation and put online in 1963. It proved very popular, and the users quickly bogged the machine down. By 1964, a replacement was sought with higher performance. JOHNNIAC was retired in 1966 and replaced by a PDP-6, which ultimately grew to support hundreds of computer terminals based on the IBM Selectric. The terminals used green ink for user input and black for the computer's response. Any command that was not understood elicited the response Eh?.
The system was highly influential, spawning a variety of ports and offshoots. Some remained similar to the original, like TELCOMP and STRINGCOMP, CAL, CITRAN, ISIS, PIL/I, JEAN (ICT 1900 series), BOSS and INTERP on the Burroughs B5500, Algebraic Interpretive Dialogue (AID, on PDP-10).
“JOSS” enters the record as programming language. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what JOSS, programming and language can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q974083. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1964, 1966 and 1900.
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This entry incorporates text from “JOSS” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.