# JOSS

> programming language

**Wikidata**: [Q974083](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q974083)  
**Wikipedia**: [English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOSS)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/joss

## Summary
JOSS is a programming language developed in 1963 by Cliff Shaw, primarily intended for time-sharing systems and interactive computing. It was designed to allow multiple users to access a computer simultaneously through terminals. JOSS influenced later languages such as TELCOMP and played a foundational role in early conversational programming environments.

## Key Facts
- Inception: 1963  
- Developer: Cliff Shaw  
- Instance of: Programming language  
- Influenced by: ALGOL 58  
- Related languages: TELCOMP (1965), JOVIAL (1960), MUMPS (1966)  
- Sitelink count: 7  
- Freebase ID: /m/011k8l  
- Image: [JOSS Session](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/JOSS_Session.jpg)  
- Commons category: JOSS (programming language)  
- Wikipedia languages: English, Spanish, Croatian, Malayalam, Portuguese, Russian  

## FAQs
### Q: What is JOSS used for?
A: JOSS was developed as an interactive, time-shared programming language to support multi-user access to computers via terminals. It enabled early forms of conversational computing and influenced subsequent interactive programming systems like TELCOMP.

### Q: Who created JOSS?
A: JOSS was created by Cliff Shaw in 1963. He was instrumental in developing one of the first high-level languages tailored for time-sharing environments.

### Q: How is JOSS related to other programming languages?
A: JOSS was influenced by ALGOL 58 and served as a basis for TELCOMP, another interactive language developed in 1965. It also shares historical context with contemporaries like JOVIAL and MUMPS.

## Why It Matters
JOSS holds historical importance as one of the pioneering languages in the development of time-sharing computing systems. At a time when batch processing dominated, JOSS introduced interactivity between users and machines, laying conceptual groundwork for modern command-line interfaces and multi-user operating systems. Its influence extended into educational computing and early networked environments, making it a notable milestone in the evolution of user-centric software design.

## Notable For
- One of the earliest interactive programming languages  
- Designed specifically for time-sharing systems in the 1960s  
- Influenced the creation of TELCOMP, a conversational programming system  
- Developed during a transformative era in computing history  
- Associated with early efforts at democratizing access to computational resources  

## Body
### Development and Creator
JOSS was developed in 1963 by Cliff Shaw, who worked at the RAND Corporation. The language emerged from research into time-sharing computing models, which aimed to enable multiple users to interact with a single computer simultaneously using remote terminals.

### Technical Characteristics
JOSS was designed to be simple and accessible, emphasizing ease-of-use for non-expert programmers. It supported basic arithmetic operations, control structures, and input/output commands suitable for interactive sessions. While not widely adopted beyond experimental settings, its syntax and philosophy informed later developments in conversational programming.

### Influence and Legacy
JOSS had a direct influence on TELCOMP, an interactive extension released in 1965. Both languages were part of broader initiatives to make computing more responsive and accessible. Though less known than successors like BASIC or Unix shells, JOSS represents a critical step toward modern interactive computing paradigms.

### Historical Context
Developed shortly after JOVIAL (1960) and around the same period as MUMPS (1966), JOSS contributed to a wave of specialized programming languages targeting niche but emerging domains such as real-time interaction and resource sharing. Despite limited deployment, its ideas persisted in academic circles and prototype systems throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.

## References

1. Freebase Data Dumps. 2013