BANCStar programming language

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In computing, BANCStar is a specialist programming language for financial applications. The language is an internal language for the National Financial Computer Services, Inc (later Broadway & Seymour) BANCStar application, which is software to automate the operations of a bank branch.[1]

The language resembles an esoteric programming language — the only legal characters are the numerals 0-9, the comma, the minus sign and the carriage return — but is used in real commercial applications. It was originally intended as generated code from a user interface-building tool — similar to bytecode rendered in ASCII — but due to limitations in the tool became a directly-programmed language in itself.[2]

[edit] Sample BANCStar code

8607,,,1
11547,15475,22002,22002
1316,1629,1,1649 
3001,1316,3,30078
11528,22052,22002,22002
9301,0,1528,1528
31568,10001,800,107
8560,,,1568
8550,210,,
3001,,,
3100,1316,3,30089
11547,15475,22002,22002
3001,1316,3,30089
3001,1317,3,10000
8400,,,
8550,700,801,
3001,,,
9301,0,522,522
3000,1284,3,10001
8500,,3,
8500,,5,
1547,,1,-2301

[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Broadway & Seymour's WinPrism To Debut in Early 1997 (press release, 15 October 1996)
  2. ^ a b BANCStar (Joe Loughry, The Turing Tarpit)