Proposed Starlink Software Environment

The Starlink 'Software Environment' will provide a command language enabling the astronomer at an interactive terminal to manipulate data by specifying operations in a concise but natural way. It will also define a set of subroutine interfaces which will give the applications programmer access to command parameters, images and other bulk data, graphics devices and other peripherals. The paper discusses the philosophy of the software environment and gives details of the program interface.