Install algol68g with Homebrew, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, scoop

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• a68g

Project history

Marcel van der Veer's official Algol 68 Genie page says development started around 1990, an alpha release was posted in 2001, beta releases followed from 2002, and revision 1.0 dates from September 2002. The project page frames the work as preservation of Algol 68 for educational and scientific-historical use, while still letting users write medium-sized programs.

The official history notes several milestones: revision 1.3 added formatted transput in 2003, revisions 1.6 and 1.7 added the parallel clause and partial parametrization in 2005, version 2.0 arrived in 2010, and version 3.0 arrived in 2021. By 2026, the site described the implementation as essentially feature-complete, with recent releases focused mostly on maintenance and runtime-library additions.

The implementation is written from scratch and is presented as one of the most complete ALGOL 68 implementations. It provides runtime checks, a GDB-style debugger, arbitrary precision arithmetic, and optional partial precompilation on platforms such as Linux and FreeBSD.

Adoption history

Algol 68 Genie occupies the preservation-and-practice niche rather than a mainstream production niche. Its official page links to precompiled packages for major distributions, and the input facts list packages in Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, MacPorts, Nix, Arch, and Scoop.

The project has also influenced later compiler work. The official page says Jose Marchesi's `ga68` GCC front-end derives its parser from the hand-coded Algol 68 Genie parser, and that the GCC Steering Committee agreed to include ga68 in trunk as experimental for GCC 16.1.

How it is used

Users install `a68g` to run ALGOL 68 programs, work through the official Learning Algol 68 Genie material, and experiment with the Revised Report language on modern systems. The official page describes Linux, BSD, and Windows 11 support, with source archives and Windows binaries published from the project site.

For package users, `algol68g` is the practical way to get a maintained ALGOL 68 environment without hunting historical compilers. It is useful for language archaeology, programming-language coursework, Rosetta Code style examples, and testing historical algorithms in a current terminal.

Why package nerds care

Algol 68 Genie is significant because package managers make a language-preservation runtime one command away. That keeps ALGOL 68 visible in modern Unix-like environments and makes historical language exploration reproducible.

It is also a reminder that package repositories are not only for current production stacks. They preserve executable culture: old languages, reports, examples, and implementation techniques remain buildable on current machines.

Timeline

• Around 1990: Development starts.
• 2001: Alpha release posted.
• 2002: Beta releases and revision 1.0.
• 2003: Revision 1.3 introduces formatted transput.
• 2005: Revisions 1.6 and 1.7 add the parallel clause and partial parametrization.
• 2010: Version 2.0 released.
• 2021: Version 3.0 released.
• 2025: ga68 GCC front-end work is announced, deriving parser work from Algol 68 Genie.
• 2026: Version 3.12.2 source archive listed on the official site.

Related projects

• Related projects include the GNU ga68 front-end for GCC, historical ALGOL 68 implementations, the Software Preservation Group's ALGOL materials, Rosetta Code ALGOL 68 examples, and editor modes for ALGOL 68 syntax.

Sources

• https://algol68genie.nl/en/algol-68-genie-source-code-repository/
• https://algol68genie.nl/en/algol-68-genie/
• source_facts.package-manager