ADR modified Autoflow to decode the type directly from the instruction codes, allowing it to produce a flowchart by reading the original unmodified program.
When ADR wrote up such a proposal with a $25,000 price tag, RCA expressed little interest, as was the case for some other computer vendors they approached.
[3] The company had free nighttime use of a 501, so Martin Goetz decided to assign Mike Guzik to write an initial version, which was completed in 4 to 6 months.
After spending an estimated 5 to $10,000 on development ($98,240 in 2023), Goetz decided they would market it directly to RCA's customer base of about one hundred 501 users at $2,495.
The main problem was that Autoflow required one to mark up the original program with comments containing numeric codes that indicated the type of instruction, processing, branching, etc.
In contrast to Autoflow, this program required the user to describe the entire flowchart using a separate input file, it did not read existing code, and was therefore much more labor-intensive to use.
At this point Goetz decided to head off this possibility before it happened, and in 1965 he filed for a patent on the concept of reading existing code to produce a flowchart.
He consulted with Mort Jacobs, the attorney who prepared the patent filing, and they decided to attack the issue by offering the program under a licensing arrangement, not selling it outright.
[2] The major success of the System/360 led ADR to port to this system, as well as supporting three languages, 360 assembly, Fortran and COBOL.
The first comparison has three possible branches, to the left if the value of "activity code" is less than three (LOW), equal to 3 (EQ, on another page not shown here) or greater than 3 (HIGH).