Information and Communication Technology

3.1.10.4 Interactive Computing 

A major breakthrough in programming took place in the early 1960s when interactive languages' like BASIC were developed. With an interactive language, we can converse (interact) with a computer. Most of the modem languages including FORTRAN have incorporat ed interactive features. With the help of an interactive language, we may engage in a conversation with our computer like this:

I am computing sum of two values

• Please input value of X = 255.75
• Please input value of Y= 120.50
• Sum of X any Y = 376.25
• Do you want me to do one more sum?
• No Thanks
• Bye then, See you again!

The lower-case words are of the computer and the words underlined are ours. Such interactive computing would be useful in knowing certain intermediate results and taking actions depending upon the values.