RexxLang   Rexx Language History
Welcome to the Rexx Language History page.

This page collects documents and links relating to the history of the Rexx, Object Rexx, and NetRexx programming languages, gleaned from many sources. For the latest news, tutorials, links, and other information about the languages and the Rexx ANSI standard, please visit the Rexx Language Association web site.


Rexx History

Rexx was initially developed from 1979 through 1982 as an internal IBM tool, and was first released as part of the IBM VM/SP3 operating system product in 1983. Since then there have been numerous Rexx implementations, for all major platforms. It has been estimated that, to date, well over two million people have written programs in Rexx, Object Rexx, or NetRexx.

Here you'll find:

See also: The Early History of REXX, Cowlishaw, M. F., IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, ISSN 1058-6180, Vol 16, No. 4, Winter 1994, pp15-24.)

Background Information

For current information on Rexx, and more background, try these links:

Requests and suggestions?

Welcome audio This information is collected and maintained by Mike Cowlishaw. Please send your requests and suggestions for additional items (and report any errors or omissions) using e-mail to mfc@speleotrove.com

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Ian Collier, Eric Giguere, Gabe Goldberg, and Melinda Varian for permission to use their documents and data in this collection, and to Liz Holland for finding many of the historical announcement documents. I am also indebted to IBM for the opportunity to develop Rexx in the first place, and for the permission to reproduce the extracts from IBM documentation here.

Copyright © Mike Cowlishaw 1973, 2020, except where stated otherwise. Parts Copyright IBM 1974, 2003; used by permission. All rights reserved.
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