Universities began running it in a dedicated "fast-batch" memory partition with a small run-time limit, such as 5 seconds on an IBM System/360 Model 67).
The low limit enabled fast turnaround and avoided waste of time by programs stuck in infinite loops.
WATFIV's success helped inspire development of ASSIST, PL/C and other student-oriented programs that fit the "fast-batch" model that became widely used among universities.
[8] The original ASSIST code seems to still get some use, as seen in 2017 demonstration video assembling its source and running it in MVS 3.8 emulation on a laptop.
Assembly programmers of the era, including those who wrote ASSIST, often saved precious memory by using the high-order 8 bits for flags, which required a compatibility mode when IBM introduced 31-bit and then 64-bit addressing.