Title
Programming in America in the 1950s – Some Personal Impressions by John BackusCatalog Number
102639682Type
Moving imageDescription
The First International Research Conference on the History of Computing was a milestone in the history of computing, drawing a global elite of computer pioneers from the first generation of electronic digital computing. Most talks are approximately 45 minutes in duration and feature a lecture with a brief question and answer period afterwards.John Backus was the project leader at IBM for the team which developed the Fortran programming language. Fortran was the earliest high-level programming language for computers, first released in 1957 for the giant IBM 704 mainframe computer, and designed to solve math problems using algebra-like syntax.
Backus describes the team’s efforts to build this remarkable programming language, one that remains in wide use today in science and engineering applications like high performance computing.
This lecture’s transcript was included in the edited volume from the conference, viz. Backus, J., “Programming in America in the 1950s – Some Personal Impressions,” in Metropolis, N., and Howlett, J., Rota, Gian-Carlo, A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1980, pp. 125 – 135.
Date
1976-06-11Credits
Backus, John W.Participants
| Backus, John W., Speaker |
Place of Publication
Los Alamos, NM, USAIdentifying Numbers
| Other number | Reel 17 | Original tape numbering |
Duration
00:34:34Dimensions
10 inchesFormat
Betacam SPCategory
LectureSeries Title
International Research Conference on the History of ComputingLot Number
X5953.2011Related Records
| 102695403 | Software development at IBM. Lecture by John Backus at the Los Alamos History of Computing Conference |