JTC1/SC22/WG1 (no longer active) - Programming Languages for Industrial Processes (PLIP)

last revised 6 April 1996
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG1 PLIP - Programming Languages for Industrial Processes - was established in 1976, also as its WG1, by SC22's predecessor committee, ISO TC97/SC5, and was inherited by the new SC22 when it started work in 1985. The remit of WG1 was to review the then current programming languages for real-time process control, and make recommendations on which would be suitable for international standardization.

The languages Coral 66, RTL/2 (both standardized in the UK by BSI) and Pearl (standardized in Germany by DIN) were all considered, but none attracted sufficient international support. The language communities for these were all believed to be well enough served by the existing national standards, so that the work involved in transposition to international standards would not be justified by the benefits. One work item proposal for a language suitable for real-time applications - Ada - did attract international support. However, Ada is a large-scale general purpose language suitable for many kinds of applications, and SC5 therefore formed a separate working group (now SC22/WG9) to look after its standardization.

These developments left WG1 with just one project, the transposition to an international standard of a US national standard for Industrial real-time Fortran or IRTF, a package of Fortran subroutine originally developed by the Instrument Society of America. This was published in 1985. The new SC22 decided that no further development work would be done in this area, and accordingly WG1 was dissolved. The IRTF standard was reconfirmed once, in 1990, but withdrawn after the next ISO five-year review in 1995.

Approved international specification produced:

This page prepared by Brian Meek, last revised 6 April 1996