ASSIST
Encyclopedia
ASSIST is an IBM
System/370
-compatible assembler and interpreter
developed in the 1970s at Penn State University by John Mashey
and a group of Mashey's student assistants. Originally, ASSIST was available only to universities and was implemented at several hundred of them, but was occasionally used elsewhere. In 1998, Penn State declared that ASSIST was no longer copyrighted and that the program was freely available
.
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
System/370
System/370
The IBM System/370 was a model range of IBM mainframes announced on June 30, 1970 as the successors to the System/360 family. The series maintained backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path for customers; this, plus improved performance, were the dominant themes of the...
-compatible assembler and interpreter
Interpreter (computing)
In computer science, an interpreter normally means a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language...
developed in the 1970s at Penn State University by John Mashey
John Mashey
John Mashey is a computer scientist, director and entrepreneur.Mashey holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Pennsylvania State University, where he developed the ASSIST assembler language teaching software. He worked on the PWB/UNIX operating system at Bell Labs from 1973 to 1983, authoring the...
and a group of Mashey's student assistants. Originally, ASSIST was available only to universities and was implemented at several hundred of them, but was occasionally used elsewhere. In 1998, Penn State declared that ASSIST was no longer copyrighted and that the program was freely available
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
.