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Rarest Programming Language Created Before 1980 — All 169 Answers Ranked by Rarity

169 answers are accepted for “Name a programming language created before 1980”. Klerer–May System is the rarest programming language created before 1980 in this ranking, with 254 monthly Wikipedia views (rarity 1.000, Legendary). CS-4 is the second-rarest with 301 monthly Wikipedia views, 1.19× the figure for Klerer–May System. C is the most common programming language created before 1980 in this ranking, with 1,452,804 monthly Wikipedia views, 5,720× the figure for the rarest. Combined monthly Wikipedia views across the 169 answers: 4,988,347. Klerer–May System is under 0.1% of that total. 34 answers are Epic or Legendary: Klerer–May System (Legendary), CS-4 (Legendary), ZOPL (Legendary), and 31 more.

Quick answer

Monthly English Wikipedia pageviews. Source: Wikidata + Wikipedia pageviews (2026-10).

Ranked answers

169 answers to “Name a programming language created before 1980”, rarest first. A rarity of 1 is the rarest answer in this prompt.
Rank Answer Tier Rarity Monthly Wikipedia views
1 Klerer–May System on Wikipedia Legendary 1.000 254
2 CS-4 on Wikipedia Legendary 0.994 301
3 ZOPL on Wikipedia Legendary 0.988 376
4 CORC on Wikipedia Legendary 0.982 431
5 WSFN on Wikipedia Legendary 0.976 432
6 PACT on Wikipedia Legendary 0.970 518
7 Sort Merge Generator on Wikipedia Legendary 0.964 551
8 Absys on Wikipedia Legendary 0.958 583
9 SP/k on Wikipedia Legendary 0.952 662
10 TELCOMP on Wikipedia Legendary 0.946 680
11 XPL0 on Wikipedia Legendary 0.940 683
12 ALCOR on Wikipedia Legendary 0.935 684
13 FACT on Wikipedia Epic 0.929 749
14 PROSE modeling language on Wikipedia Epic 0.923 769
15 RTL/2 on Wikipedia Epic 0.917 797
16 LYaPAS on Wikipedia Epic 0.911 799
17 Analitik on Wikipedia Epic 0.905 815
18 LIS on Wikipedia Epic 0.899 816
19 Id on Wikipedia Epic 0.893 861
20 Data General Business Basic on Wikipedia Epic 0.887 874
21 A Sharp on Wikipedia Epic 0.881 919
22 TTM on Wikipedia Epic 0.875 958
23 TREE-META on Wikipedia Epic 0.869 974
24 El-76 on Wikipedia Epic 0.863 1,011
25 Mary on Wikipedia Epic 0.857 1,025
26 KRL on Wikipedia Epic 0.851 1,055
27 PL-11 on Wikipedia Epic 0.845 1,059
28 Babbage on Wikipedia Epic 0.839 1,066
29 COWSEL on Wikipedia Epic 0.833 1,082
30 Data Language Interface on Wikipedia Epic 0.827 1,111
31 ELAN on Wikipedia Epic 0.821 1,125
32 MIMIC on Wikipedia Epic 0.815 1,212
33 Mark IV on Wikipedia Epic 0.810 1,228
34 CGOL on Wikipedia Epic 0.804 1,281
35 IBM RPG III on Wikipedia Rare 0.798 1,297
36 Plus on Wikipedia Rare 0.792 1,298
37 GEORGE on Wikipedia Rare 0.786 1,353
38 Executive Systems Problem Oriented Language on Wikipedia Rare 0.780 1,364
39 Edinburgh IMP on Wikipedia Rare 0.774 1,386
40 FORMAC on Wikipedia Rare 0.768 1,405
41 Euclid on Wikipedia Rare 0.762 1,413
42 ARITH-MATIC on Wikipedia Rare 0.756 1,420
43 Atlas Autocode on Wikipedia Rare 0.750 1,425
44 MIIS on Wikipedia Rare 0.744 1,444
45 Language H on Wikipedia Rare 0.738 1,509
46 LSE on Wikipedia Rare 0.732 1,510
47 MATH-MATIC on Wikipedia Rare 0.726 1,608
48 PL360 on Wikipedia Rare 0.720 1,666
49 Polymorphic Programming Language on Wikipedia Rare 0.714 1,727
50 Compiler Description Language on Wikipedia Rare 0.708 1,769
51 TUTOR on Wikipedia Rare 0.702 1,783
52 Programming Language for Business on Wikipedia Rare 0.696 1,808
53 SASL on Wikipedia Rare 0.690 1,846
54 Basic/Four on Wikipedia Rare 0.685 1,971
55 DIBOL on Wikipedia Rare 0.679 2,022
56 COMIT on Wikipedia Rare 0.673 2,051
57 Level I BASIC on Wikipedia Rare 0.667 2,127
58 CORAL on Wikipedia Rare 0.661 2,165
59 Laning and Zierler system on Wikipedia Rare 0.655 2,167
60 UNCOL on Wikipedia Rare 0.649 2,171
61 TRAC on Wikipedia Rare 0.643 2,178
62 IBM PL/S on Wikipedia Rare 0.637 2,201
63 BASIC-PLUS on Wikipedia Rare 0.631 2,219
64 ALGO on Wikipedia Rare 0.625 2,353
65 Mouse on Wikipedia Rare 0.619 2,355
66 Speakeasy on Wikipedia Rare 0.613 2,401
67 TI BASIC on Wikipedia Rare 0.607 2,528
68 SAIL on Wikipedia Rare 0.601 2,536
69 GRASS on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.595 2,566
70 IBM RPG II on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.589 2,575
71 CMS-2 on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.583 2,590
72 Programming Computable Functions on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.577 2,606
73 Address programming language on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.571 2,655
74 MAPPER on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.565 2,656
75 WATFIV on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.560 2,662
76 Euler on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.554 2,698
77 COMTRAN on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.548 2,721
78 ALTRAN on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.542 2,726
79 Lucid on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.536 2,859
80 ALGOL 68C on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.530 2,924
81 Intermediate language on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.524 2,968
82 Superplan on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.518 3,012
83 PILOT on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.512 3,118
84 PLEX on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.506 3,155
85 XPL on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.500 3,379
86 ISWIM on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.494 3,414
87 PL/C on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.488 3,611
88 MAD on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.482 3,714
89 Planner on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.476 3,746
90 Lisp Machine Lisp on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.470 3,797
91 Interlisp on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.464 3,866
92 Refal on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.458 3,979
93 TMG on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.452 4,146
94 COMAL on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.446 4,383
95 Hope on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.440 4,577
96 POP-2 on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.435 4,627
97 Short Code on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.429 4,774
98 BlooP and FlooP on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.423 5,018
99 Modula on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.417 5,210
100 Ratfor on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.411 5,255
101 MDL on Wikipedia Uncommon 0.405 5,287
102 FOCAL on Wikipedia Familiar 0.399 5,460
103 JOSS on Wikipedia Familiar 0.393 5,597
104 SETL on Wikipedia Familiar 0.387 5,700
105 FP on Wikipedia Familiar 0.381 5,971
106 PEARL on Wikipedia Familiar 0.375 6,215
107 ALGOL W on Wikipedia Familiar 0.369 6,335
108 GPSS on Wikipedia Familiar 0.363 6,351
109 SLIP on Wikipedia Familiar 0.357 6,523
110 Atari BASIC on Wikipedia Familiar 0.351 6,852
111 Mesa on Wikipedia Familiar 0.345 6,984
112 Icon on Wikipedia Familiar 0.339 7,044
113 HAL/S on Wikipedia Familiar 0.333 7,155
114 Mizar system on Wikipedia Familiar 0.327 7,167
115 Information Processing Language on Wikipedia Familiar 0.321 8,540
116 Integer BASIC on Wikipedia Familiar 0.315 8,616
117 Autocode on Wikipedia Familiar 0.310 9,171
118 UCSD Pascal on Wikipedia Familiar 0.304 9,391
119 TECO on Wikipedia Familiar 0.298 10,365
120 CPL on Wikipedia Familiar 0.292 10,445
121 P′′ on Wikipedia Familiar 0.286 11,385
122 Applesoft BASIC on Wikipedia Familiar 0.280 11,752
123 JOVIAL on Wikipedia Familiar 0.274 11,848
124 CLU on Wikipedia Familiar 0.268 12,620
125 Tiny BASIC on Wikipedia Familiar 0.262 12,642
126 Bc on Wikipedia Familiar 0.256 13,407
127 Speedcoding on Wikipedia Familiar 0.250 14,057
128 CICS on Wikipedia Familiar 0.244 14,957
129 Rexx on Wikipedia Familiar 0.238 15,410
130 IDL on Wikipedia Familiar 0.232 16,324
131 Commodore BASIC on Wikipedia Familiar 0.226 16,615
132 Modula-2 on Wikipedia Familiar 0.220 17,949
133 PL/M on Wikipedia Familiar 0.214 18,251
134 M4 on Wikipedia Familiar 0.208 18,904
135 FLOW-MATIC on Wikipedia Familiar 0.202 19,455
136 Altair BASIC on Wikipedia Common 0.196 20,222
137 BLISS on Wikipedia Common 0.190 21,621
138 Microsoft BASIC on Wikipedia Common 0.185 23,094
139 ABC on Wikipedia Common 0.179 24,348
140 IBM RPG on Wikipedia Common 0.173 25,415
141 INTERCAL on Wikipedia Common 0.167 28,518
142 Plankalkül on Wikipedia Common 0.161 28,983
143 C shell on Wikipedia Common 0.155 30,227
144 PL/0 on Wikipedia Common 0.149 32,957
145 Simula on Wikipedia Common 0.143 34,487
146 BCPL on Wikipedia Common 0.137 38,613
147 MUMPS on Wikipedia Common 0.131 43,933
148 S on Wikipedia Common 0.125 44,261
149 ALGOL on Wikipedia Common 0.119 49,695
150 VisiCalc on Wikipedia Common 0.113 49,708
151 Bourne shell on Wikipedia Common 0.107 55,578
152 ML on Wikipedia Common 0.101 59,817
153 CHIP-8 on Wikipedia Common 0.095 60,764
154 G-code on Wikipedia Common 0.089 66,523
155 Make on Wikipedia Common 0.083 67,359
156 Logo on Wikipedia Common 0.077 68,697
157 PL/I on Wikipedia Common 0.071 73,261
158 Scheme on Wikipedia Common 0.065 75,275
159 Forth on Wikipedia Common 0.060 85,332
160 B on Wikipedia Common 0.054 108,145
161 Smalltalk on Wikipedia Common 0.048 109,597
162 Prolog on Wikipedia Common 0.042 110,613
163 TeX on Wikipedia Common 0.036 125,573
164 SNOBOL on Wikipedia Common 0.030 203,054
165 Fortran on Wikipedia Common 0.024 248,638
166 COBOL on Wikipedia Common 0.018 277,115
167 SQL on Wikipedia Common 0.012 317,611
168 Assembly language on Wikipedia Common 0.006 353,560
169 C on Wikipedia Common 0.000 1,452,804

FAQ

What is the rarest programming language created before 1980?

Klerer–May System is the rarest programming language created before 1980 in this ranking, with 254 monthly Wikipedia views (rarity 1.000, Legendary).

How many programming language created before 1980s are there?

There are 169 programming language created before 1980s in this ranking, from Klerer–May System (rarest) to C (most common).

What is the most common programming language created before 1980?

C is the most common programming language created before 1980 in this ranking, with 1,452,804 monthly Wikipedia views (Common).

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Sources

Recorded source: Wikidata + Wikipedia pageviews (2026-10). The answer list is compiled from Wikidata (CC0), and the view counts are monthly English Wikipedia pageviews. Rarity is the percentile of the popularity figure inside this prompt: 1 is the rarest and 0 is the most common. Linked names open the English Wikipedia article stored on that answer.