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FORTRAN

In 1954 a team at IBM lead by John Backus began working on the first high level programming language, as a better way of programming. It was called Formula Translator - FORTRAN. This was the first language that was anything approaching high level. It has been described as a cross between pidgin English and algebra. It revolutionized programming, at a time when programmers worked in binary, setting up, or assembly languages. It was designed to be easy for scientists and engineers to learn so that they could readily program their own problems.

Fortrans' long history has led to the development of extensive mathematical and engineering libraries and specialist compilers for high performance computing on a wide range of parallel and supercomputers.

Links

BCS (British Computer Society) - Fortran Specialist Group - http://www.fortran.bcs.org/ - The Group was established in 1970 to provide an open forum for Fortran users.

BCS - Fifty Years of Fortran - Fortran Specialist Group - http://www.fortran.bcs.org/2007/jubileeprog.php - Meeting organised jointly by the Fortran Specialist Group and the Computer Conservation Society.

FORTRAN - Mind your language - http://itnow.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/48/6/16 - Peter Crouch - Chairman of the BCS Fortran Specialist Group, looks at 50 years of the programming language.

FORTRAN - History of FORTRAN and FORTRAN II - http://community.computerhistory.org/scc/projects/FORTRAN/ - Paul McJones, Computer History Museum.

John Backus (1924-2007) - John W. Backus, who built and led the IBM team that created Fortran, the first widely used programming language, which helped to open the door to modern computing, died on 17 March at his home in Ashland, Oregon, USA. He was 82.

The New Features of Fortran 2003 - ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1551-N1600/N1579.pdf - The aim of this paper is to summarize the new features in the Final Committee Draft (FCD) of the Fortran 2003 standard (WG5 2003) - John Reid, WG5 Convener, JKR Associates.

University of Linköping, National Supercomputer Centre - http://www.nsc.liu.se/~boein/fortran.html - Fortran 90/95 texts by Bo Einarsson.

Developed by Peter Hale, 2006. The University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.