Title: A language for CAL: 'C' where it leads

Authors: G.J. Makinson, H.L. Morarji

Addresses: Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. ' Head of Mathematics, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji

Abstract: The wide availability of Unix and the C language has made it possible to create teaching packages which can be ported very easily from one machine to another. C programs are generally accepted to be highly portable whereas other languages such as Fortran are not. At the University of Kent, teaching packages for computational mathematics have been created in C using an authoring system, KAS, devised at Kent. The software generates graphical displays in a device-independent format using a graphics program, DIGS, written in C at Heriot-Watt University. With specific device drivers the software can display results, both numerically and graphically, in colour or mono on such displays as a BBC micro, Tektonics 4010, Sigma, or any micro emulating a Tektronics terminal. The graphical output can also be sent to an advanced plotter such as a CALCOMP or BENSON plotter. Interactive access to the software can be from a standalone workstation, over a ring network, or over a wide area network such as JANET.

Keywords: computer-aided learning; CAL author systems; computational mathematics; networking; computerised teaching packages; C language.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.1989.062657

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 1989 Vol.2 No.2, pp.124 - 126

Published online: 11 Jun 2014 *

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