Speakeasy (computational environment)
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| Developer(s) | Speakeasy Computing Corporation |
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| Stable release |
IV Iota / 2006
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| Written in | Mortran, FORTRAN, C |
| Operating system | Windows, macOS, RedHat Linux, SUSE Linux, Mandrake Linux, Debian, Solaris, HP-UX |
| Type | Technical computing |
| License | Trialware |
| Website | speakeasy |
| Paradigm | imperative |
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| Designed by | Stanley Cohen |
| Developer | Speakeasy Computing Corporation |
| First appeared | 1964 |
| Typing discipline | dynamic |
| Website | speakeasy |
| Influenced by | |
| APL | |
| Influenced | |
| MATLAB | |
Speakeasy is a numerical computing interactive environment also featuring an interpreted programming language. It was initially developed for internal use at the Physics Division of Argonne National Laboratory by the theoretical physicist Stanley Cohen. He eventually founded Speakeasy Computing Corporation to make the program available commercially.
Speakeasy is a very long-lasting numerical package. In fact, the original version of the environment was built around a core dynamic data repository called "Named storage" developed in the early 1960s, while the most recent version has been released in 2006.
Speakeasy was aimed to make the computational work of the physicists at the Argonne National Laboratory easier. It was initially conceived to work on mainframes (the only kind of computers at that time), and was subsequently ported to new platforms (minicomputers, personal computers) as they became available. The porting of the same code on different platforms was made easier by using Mortran metalanguage macros to face systems dependencies and compilers deficiencies and differences. Speakeasy is currently available on several platforms : PCs running Windows, macOS, Linux, departmental computers and workstations running several flavors of Linux, AIX or Solaris.
Speakeasy was also among the first interactive numerical computing environments, having been implemented in such a way on a CDC 3600 system, and later on IBM TSO machines as one was in beta-testing at the Argonne National Laboratory at the time.
Almost since the beginning (as the dynamic linking functionality was made available in the operating systems) Speakeasy features the capability of expanding its operational vocabulary using separated modules, dynamically linked to the core processor as they are needed. For that reason such modules were called "linkules" (LINKable-modULES). They are functions with a generalized interface, which can be written in FORTRAN or in C. The independence of each of the new modules from the others and from the main processor is of great help in improving the system, especially it was in the old days.
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