First published 1987 Revised from the 1984 Russian editionTranslated from the Russian by Peter I. ZabolotnyIn a short quarter-century, the electronic computer has had an enor­mous impact upon business, industry, science, education, and society in general. Scarcely an occupation or academic discipline has not been profoundly affected by the computer’s speed and tireless capa­ city for work. The advent of large-scale integrated circuits, micropro­cessors, and large-capacity semiconductor memories have made pos­sible powerful computer systems, cutting their cost, dimensions, and power consumption.In order for automation to be introduced throughout the economy, a common engineering base is essential. The CMEA countries, there­ fore, have started mass production of a Unified System of Com­ puters, the Cyrilic ES EVM title yielding the abbreviation which we shall now use.The six base models differ in their specifications (speed, main storage capacity, etc.) and some 140 different peripherals are avail­ able. These peripherals substantially enhance the abilities of the ES EVM computers without affecting their software compatibility.The ES EVM computer system has become a vital tool for any re­ search worker who must solve complicated problems. They have been applied in the most diverse fields of science and technology, such as physics, chemistry, geology, biology, nuclear power engineering, space research, rocket technology, aviation, machine-tool industry, and management. There is hardly any industry which does not use or cannot use computers in some way.The software for the ES range includes operating systems, auto­matic programming aids in standard languages and compilers.Algorithmic languages are the most important part of the ES EVM software, and provide tools for solving problems on ES computers. All those attending the computers, system programmers and ope­rators, those involved in data processing, and computer maintenance specialists must be conversant with programming in such problem-oriented languages as ALGOL, FORTRAN, COBOL, Assembler, and PL/I.This book is aimed at training such specialists of medium level. We believe this text will be of help to those using an independent approach to the study of computer programming and algorithmic languages.