This was probably not aimed at me, but for the record the ICT 1301 had a COBOL compiler (if you count that as a HLL) but most programs were written in machine code with relativisers. The largest 1301 had 2000 words by 12 digits, but I think COBOL could run on a 1200 word machine, so 1200 x 12 =14400 digits, a bit less than a 1620. What it did (and still does) have is a 12000 word drum as backing store. Many 1301s also had mag tape too, but I am not sure COBOL needed to use them. Mind you 1301 instructions are mainly six digits long, Its just the block move and drum/tape I/O orders which are 12 digits. The card/paper tape intermediates reminds me of the older Elliott 920 Coral 66 compiler written by CAP (computer analysts and programmers). It was four passes and each pass punched out a tape to read into the next pass. The first pass expanded macros and was optional if you did not use any macros. The second and third passes converted from infix to polish, then polish to reverse polish (or maybe the other way round), and the final pass did code generation. Then you collected together all the tapes from all your program segments and libraries and fed them to a linking loader. If you managed to do that without tearing a tape you were rewarded by your program running. My boss wrote a mini operating system which loaded the programs and passed the intermediates via a huge disk (about a meter diameter with the axis horizontal, it was a head per track disc of a fairly small capacity, IIRC 2 million bits or maybe 2 million 18 bit words), which made life bearable. Later on we moved the compiler onto a GEC 4080 to cross compile for the 920. The 920 program grew and I had to modify the compiler so it could produce the binary output in chunks as it exceeded a 1000 foot roll of tape, and anyway I was the only person in the office capable of rolling up a full 1000 foot roll without damaging it. Roger.