I think lower..higher index ranges for arrays were used in Algol-68, PL/1, and Pascal long before Ada At least in standard Pascal arrays with different index r

I think lower..higher index ranges for arrays were used in Algol-68, PL/1, and Pascal long before Ada At least in standard Pascal arrays with different index ranges were of different incompatible types, so it was hard to write reusable code, like sort or binary search. The solution was either parameterized types or proprietary language extensions