History

It was developed in the early 1980's by Sigma Design, Ltd. of Englewood, Colorado, for use with the Sigma Graphics CAD System. (Sigma Graphics has now been renamed to ARRIS CAD

ARRIS CAD

ARRIS CAD is an architectural CAD system developed and marketed by Sigma Design International. of Alexandria, Louisiana. It was originally developed as SigmaGraphics in 1978. It was originally developed and released on a Z80 microprocessor, which made it the first micro-processor based CAD system,...

 and is sold by Sigma Design International. of Alexandria, Louisiana.

Its name was derived from "Sigma Macro Language".

Sigmac is still in use by users of the ARRIS CAD

ARRIS CAD

ARRIS CAD is an architectural CAD system developed and marketed by Sigma Design International. of Alexandria, Louisiana. It was originally developed as SigmaGraphics in 1978. It was originally developed and released on a Z80 microprocessor, which made it the first micro-processor based CAD system,...

 System to write custom applications and custom commands.

Overview

"The Sigmac language consists of syntax, a toolbox and logic. Syntax is the grammar of the language, consisting of symbols and keywords that makeup executing statements. The toolbox is the set of application sigmacs and functions. Functions are powerful and complex, affectionately referred to as dollar utilities (they all begin with "$"). $utilities expect arguments in a strict order and may or may not return data. Logic is the flow (or control) in which statements are executed." (from "What is a Sigmac")

Syntax

Sigmac borrowed much of its syntax from BASIC

BASIC

BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....

, such as using the first letter of a variable to determine its type. It is a compiled, but interpreted language, meaning that the source code is compiled into "pseudo codes" rather than native machine language, which are then interpreted and executed at run time. Because of this feature, Sigmac commands could be executed on all platforms support by ARRIS - Windows, Solaris, etc.

Sample Sigmac

001 /* hello.ff sc 03.15.2000 ARRIS v7.1

002 //hello

003 level 1u

004 ! ' Hello World '

005

006 exit

(from Sigmac Basics, by Steve Clark