“Wat For Ever:” Student-Oriented Computing at the University of Waterloo

In 1965, four undergraduates at the University of Waterloo wrote Watfor, a fast student-oriented Fortran compiler for the school’s IBM 7040, largely because the available Fortran compiler was slow and offered weak diagnostic and debugging tools. This article describes the birth and evolution of the Watfor family and explores how it fits into the University of Waterloo’s unique-within-Canada cooperative education program and pedagogical philosophy.