B.A.L. redirects here. For the IBM mainframe Assembly language

Assembly language

An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...

, see Basic assembly language

Basic assembly language

BAL is a low-level language used on IBM mainframes from the earliest 360 series, through systems 370, 390 and z/Series, as well as the Univac 90/60, 90/70 and 90/80 mainframes made by Sperry Corporation. The earliest version was provided with the System/360 in 1964; the latest version is known as...

; for other topics see BAL

BAL

-Medicine:* Blood-alcohol content, aka Blood-alcohol level* bioartificial liver - a medical procedure in which isolated hepatocytes are being used to provide temporary support for liver failure* Ongoing brain activity aka Brain Activity Level...

In computer programming

Computer programming

Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...

, BAL (an acronym for Business Application Language) refers to a high-level programming language similar to BASIC

BASIC

BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....

.

It was originally defined by Honeywell

Honeywell

Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....

 in 1973 and the major diffusion was in their system '80-'90 in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 with the work of French firm Prologue S.A. that used BAL for programming on their proprietary Operative System (Prologue).

In 1986 the language was ported to the Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 platform by GuyPes. The first development environment, named Balix, are distributed starting in 1988 in Italy and France. A different evolution path was made by Prologue S.A., named ABAL, in 1992.

The evolution of Balix, developed in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, is called B2U (an acronym for Business under UNIX) developed by GuyPes, and are used for a Banking Information System that are used by one hundred banks in Italy.