Programming in America in the 1950s – Some Personal Impressions by John Backus
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.
Item Details
- Date
- 1976-06-11 (Made)
- Type
- Moving Image
- Catalogue number
- 102639682
- Other identifying number
- Reel 17 (OTHER IDENTIFYING NUMBER)
- People
- John W. Backus (Speaker)
John W. Backus (Author) - Category
- Lecture
- Format
- Betacam SP
- Credit line
- Gift of FIC
- Extent
- 00:34:34
- Place of publication
- North America/USA/NM/Los Alamos
- Acquisition number
- X5953.2011