page_title: Maestro I
section_title: Historical context
hierarchical_section_title: Maestro I / Historical context
caption_attribution_description: A 80 holes punched card.
context_page_description: Maestro I was the world's first integrated development environment for software. It was developed by Softlab Munich.
  Softlab Munich originally called the software Program development system terminal, but renamed it after Commodore International introduced a home computer called the Commodore PET in 1977.
  At one time there were 22,000 installations worldwide. The first USA installations were at Boeing in 1979 with eight Maestro I systems and Bank of America with 24 system and 576 developer terminals.
  Until 1989 there were 6,000 installations in the Federal Republic of Germany. Maestro I was the world leader in the field in the 1970s and 1980s.
  Maestro I holds a significant place in the history of technology.
  One of the last Maestro I systems is at the Museum of Information Technology at Arlington.
context_section_description: In order to understand the impact of Maestro, one has to understand the way programmers worked until about 1975. They would enter their code and test data in paper tape or punched cards. After finishing the punching, the programmer would feed the tape and/or the cards in the computer.
  The introduction of the IBM 3270 terminals together with IBM’s ISPF (Interactive System Productivity Facility) constituted a real improvement. The text editor that was integrated in ISPF allowed source code for programs to be entered in real time. The editor was controlled with commands, line editing and function keys. The disadvantage was that the reaction to input would only appear after a whole page had been entered which made the operation slow and not very intuitive.
caption: Punched card
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