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What you will need

The language described in this book is that made available by the a68toc Algol 68 compiler developed by the Defence Research Agency (see section 1.9 for more information about what a compiler does). It implements almost all of the language known as Algol 68, and extends that language in minor respects. To run the programs described in this book you will need a microcomputer with a Linux system. The source package will occupy ≈12Mb on the hard disk while the binary package will also need ≈2Mb of space on the hard disk. The source package may be deleted once the binary package has been installed. The book expects you to be familiar with the usual commands for manipulating files. You will need to know how to use an editor for plain text files (not a word processor). No programming expertise is presumed.

Much program development work on Linux takes place at the command line because a graphical user interface is usually too cumbersome to cope with the myriad commands issued by the programmer. See the manual pages for `ca` and `a68toc` for details of how to use the `Algol68toC` program development system.