Interactive simulation language-8 (ISL-8)

Abstract

ISL-8 is the first single precision, parallel interactive simulation language available for a minicomputer. This paper illustrates ISL-8 programming procedures and opera tional conveniences for solving a second-order differential equation and three nonlinear problems from science and engineering. The relationship to integration step size and computational accuracy is also shown. The article con cludes that ISL-8 as implemented on any of the 4K PDP-8 family of computers can accommodate up to 25 nonlinear differential equations at computational speeds 10 to 50 times faster than languages using floating-point methods. (8K systems can accommodate up to 100 nonlinear equa tions.)