WATCOM | Computer Museum

Open WATCOM is like a mythical bird Phoenix that never dies and rises again from the ashes.

Open WATCOM

WHAT IS WATCOM? WATCOM is a set of compilers and tools for developing software in the Fortran, C, and C++ programming languages. It was originally developed by the Watcom International Corporation in the 1980s and 1990s.

WATCOM was widely used for developing software for DOS and Windows. It supported DOS, extended DOS 32-bit, Win16, Win32, and OS/2.

Although their products are discontinued in the 2000s, WATCOM C/C++ compilers are still available under the name of open WATCOM in the GitHub.

Who is Wes Graham, the founder of WATCOM?

The story of WATCOM begins with a computer scientist at University of Waterloo, Wes Graham. In 1974, Wes Graham and Ian McPhee founded a company named Structured Computing Systems. The company soon changed its name in 1981, to WATCOM Systems Inc. With three full-time employees, the history of WATCOM began. WATCOM had several subsidiary companies, but they were all renamed as WATCOM companies for branding purpose. After 1984, the company named itself WATCOM International Inc.

The picture above is a screenshot of WATCOM IDE 10.0a version. Credit to: Gered's Rambling

WATCOM was an efficient c/c++ compiler. In the 90s,The capability of WATCOM compiler caught 3D game developers' attention. Plus, WATCOM compiler performed much faster than its competitors, Microsoft and Borland. Amongst many games that used WATCOM, we will name a few that you have certainly heard if you like video games: Doom and 3D Realms. The product was also shipped with popular DOS extender DOS/4GW.

WATCOM's present

In the early 2000s, a company named PowerSoft acquired WATCOM. Sybase then acquired Powersoft. multiple projects succeeding WATCOM products was planned to be released, but due to branding issue, the projects were cancelled. WATCOM compilers are now released as open source as the name of Open WATCOM.

History of WATCOM in short

1979
1. WATCOM Waterloo BASIC programming language
  
  Between 1978-1979, Waterloo BASIC was developed for IBM Series.
1981
1. The WATCOM International Corporation was founded
  
  The company is officially founded by the computer scientists at the University of Waterloo, Wes Graham and Ian McPhee, Fred Crigger, Jack Schueler.
1983
1. WATCOM in production
  
  In the early 1980s the company developed other software tools than BASIC programming language, including WATCOM APL, GKS, COBOL, FORTRAN, and Pascal. These products were compatible with commodore SuperPET.
1988
1. Rise of WATCOM compilers
  
  From the mid 1980s WATCOM started to developed compilers for other programming languages, including C/C++. The compilers made by WATCOM was known for its processing speed. Thus, many video games of that era used WATCOM compiler for their game.
1992
1. The start of WATCOM SQL
  
  The company started to produce database server product, SQL. You can still look for WATCOM SQL around; it just does not have the name WATCOM anymore. It is now called SAP SQL Anywhere.
1994
1. WATCOM in history
  
  Powersoft acquired WATCOM. Sybase acquired Powersoft. In the early 2000s, projects succeeding WATCOM products was put on hold due to business issue. WATCOM compilers are now released as open source as the name of Open WATCOM. You can download the software from the GitHub.