Writing man-machine dialogues for a MUMPS system using the Application Controller Language (ACL). 1979

M Thompson, and A C Miller

The Application Controller Language (ACL) was designed to facilitate the development of man-machine dialogues. An exact specification of such a dialogue before programming begins is unlikely to be implemented without many changes. Immediately a dialogue is used, the 'hands-on' experience suggests many improvements. ACL was designed to serve as a flexible tool to enable easy re-shaping of this dialogue. For this reason, ACL is structured, allows documentary comments, and may be easily edited. ACL complements MUMPS and encourages the writing of small modular MUMPS programs to carry out well-defined tasks. For this purpose, ACL serves as the 'top' of a top-down written structure, with calls to MUMPS programs being made from ACL statements. A smooth dialogue is made easier to achieve by having all ACL statements use a single I/O processor giving a uniform terminal behaviour and appearance to the display. The programmer is encouraged to call this same I/O processor from his MUMPS application programs. ACL was used extensively for the development of a data management systems for hospital critical care.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008991 Monitoring, Physiologic The continuous measurement of physiological processes, blood pressure, heart rate, renal output, reflexes, respiration, etc., in a patient or experimental animal; includes pharmacologic monitoring, the measurement of administered drugs or their metabolites in the blood, tissues, or urine. Patient Monitoring,Monitoring, Physiological,Physiologic Monitoring,Monitoring, Patient,Physiological Monitoring
D003201 Computers Programmable electronic devices designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations. Calculators, Programmable,Computer Hardware,Computers, Digital,Hardware, Computer,Calculator, Programmable,Computer,Computer, Digital,Digital Computer,Digital Computers,Programmable Calculator,Programmable Calculators
D003422 Critical Care Health care provided to a critically ill patient during a medical emergency or crisis. Intensive Care,Intensive Care, Surgical,Surgical Intensive Care,Care, Critical,Care, Intensive,Care, Surgical Intensive
D006739 Hospital Administration Management of the internal organization of the hospital. Hospital Organization and Administration,Organization and Administration, Hospital,Administration, Hospital
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man

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