This delightful gem of a paper is both enjoyable and informative. Wirth discusses the history of Pascal with rare candor and a wry sense of humor. The origins of Pascal are rooted in meetings that took place in the mid-1960s on the extension of Algol 60. Wirth was the spokesperson for one faction of the Algol Working Group, presenting a proposal that was rejected in favor of a more elaborate proposal. The winning proposal led to Algol 68, which in turn led to  Algol’s  demise as a serious contender for commercial attention. The losing proposal became the basis for Wirth’s design of Pascal. The process left Wirth with an abiding distrust of the process of decision making by committee.

Wirth traces the development of Pascal through the mainframe environment to minicomputers and thence to microcomputers. He describes a number of milestones that came from the efforts surrounding Pascal development and use, including the development of the P-system, which supports portable software tools. It is evident that Wirth’s principal interest in Pascal has been as a teaching tool but that he takes pride in its acceptance for commercial use. He follows the path of Pascal development through to Modula-2 and Oberon, which he says could be referred to as Pascal-2 and Pascal-3.

Wirth’s comments give extensive credit to a number of individuals and organizations for the eventual success of Pascal, but he makes it clear that he feels that the more important events were due to the actions and efforts of individuals rather than organizations. For anyone who wants an interesting, informative, personal view from one of the most renowned designers of computer languages, this paper is perfect.