The following material is from the unclassified Computer Programming Manual for the JOVIAL (J73) Language, RADC-TR-81-143, Final Technical Report of June 1981.

    1.1.3 Calculations

    In the simplest case, calculations is performed by an assignment
    statement.  An example is:

    AVERAGE = (X1 + X2)/2;

    The right-hand-side of this assigment is a formula; it forms the
    sum of X1 and X2 and divides it by 2.  The details of the
    operation depend on how X1 and X2 are declared.  If X1 and X2 are
    declared float, the calculation is very likely to produce the
    expected result.  In contrast, if the X1 and X2 are declared
    fixed, the scaling must be worked out by the programmer to make
    sure the calculation will succeed.  And if X1 and X2 are declared
    character-string, the compiler will reject it because JOVIAL does
    not automatically convert values into the types required by
    operators.

    In the example just given, the parenthesis show that the addition
    is performed before the division.  When parenthesis are not
    given, JOVIAL recognizes the usual order of evaluation.  Here is
    an example:

         POLY = BETA*X1**2 - GAMMA*X2 + DELTA;

    JOVIAL applies its "rules of precedence" to the formula in this
    assignment and thus interprets it as:

         POLY = (((BETA*(X1**2)) - (GAMMA*X2)) + DELTA);

    The complete precedence rules are given in Chapter 11.

    Chapter 1 Introduction, page 6