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Category Archives: Software history
More ALGOL history papers
As the ALGOL programming language enters its sixth decade, its interest to historians seems to be increasing. I’ve recently added additional citations to the “Papers on the history of ALGOL” section of the History of ALGOL web site: Edgar G. … Continue reading
Posted in FORTRAN, Software history
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Edgar Daylight on Dijkstra
The latest addition to the “Papers on the history of ALGOL” section of the History of ALGOL web site is this paper about Dijkstra’s involvement in proposing and implementing the recursive procedure as an ALGOL 60 language construct: Edgar G. … Continue reading
Posted in ALGOL, Software history
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LISP historical archive web site reorganized
The History of LISP web site launched back in 2005 as a single web page running some 40 pages when printed; it covered many of the best known Lisp implementations. Over the years, the web site approximately doubled in size, … Continue reading
Posted in LISP, Software history
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Robert L. Patrick on eMuseums
Bob Patrick is a friend of mine who entered the computer field in 1951, and whose hands-on experience running programs on an IBM 701 led him to conceive of the architecture for the General Motors/North American Monitor for the IBM … Continue reading
Posted in General, Oral history, Software history
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Herbert Stoyan’s Lisp collection at CHM
Last winter Herbert Stoyan very generously donated to the Computer History Museum the extensive collection of Lisp and AI materials he assembled in the course of his extensive study of Lisp and its history: manuals, technical reports, papers, books, listings, … Continue reading
Posted in LISP, Repositories, Software history
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Whetstone ALGOL
Part of my motivation for starting on an ALGOL project was that Brian Randell recently obtained permission from the copyright holder to post an online copy of ALGOL 60 Implementation at CHM. This book, which he and Lawford Russell published … Continue reading
Posted in ALGOL, Simulators, Software history
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ALGOL
I recently created an ALGOL section at the Computer History Museum‘s Software Preservation Group web site, covering the language standardization efforts — for ALGOL 58 (also known as the International Algebraic Language), ALGOL 60, and ALGOL 68 — and also … Continue reading
Posted in ALGOL, Software history
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Don Chamberlin and the origin of SQL
Tonight Don Chamberlin will receive a 2009 Fellow Award of the Computer History Museum “for his fundamental work on structured query language (SQL) and database architectures”. The other awardees for 2009 are Robert R. Everett (M.I.T. Whirlwind and SAGE) and … Continue reading
Posted in General, Oral history, Software history
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Bob Taylor recognized by The University of Texas
Last month, Bob Taylor (the subject of a recent oral history) was recognized by The University of Texas. Bob received the Graduate School Outstanding Alumnus Award, a $100,000 Presidential Endowed Fellowship was established in his name, and he gave the … Continue reading
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Oral history of Robert W. Taylor
Robert W. Taylor directed external research at NASA, where he funded early work by Douglas Engelbart, and at the ARPA IPTO, where he initiated the ARPANET project. He also founded the Xerox PARC Computer Science Laboratory and later the DEC … Continue reading
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ACM Classic Books Series
Last summer, ACM posted PDF versions of some books in its Classic Books Series, which resulted from a poll of ACM members initiated by David Patterson, who was then ACM President. The books are accessible to anyone who creates a … Continue reading
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The Revised MacLisp Manual goes online
MIT’s MacLisp played a key role in Lisp history, but its documentation often lagged the system as developers concentrated on adding features and improving performance. Around the time that Lisp machine development eclipsed PDP-10 MacLisp, this final MacLisp document was … Continue reading
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BBC Radio observes Fortran’s 50th birthday
This week’s episode of BBC Radio’s Digital Planet show includes a short segment on the 50th anniversary of Fortran. The presenter, Gareth Mitchell, interviewed me last week and about 4 minutes of that interview are included. If you’re interested, the … Continue reading
Posted in FORTRAN, Software history
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C++ Historical Sources Archive
Observant audience members at Bjarne Stroustrup’s HOPL-III C++ talk this past weekend may have noticed on the last slide a mention of the C++ Historical Sources Archive at the Computer History Museum. This is a project Bjarne and I have … Continue reading
Posted in General, Repositories, Software history
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Remembering John Backus
As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley in the late 1960s, I first learned of John Backus and his work on Fortran, BNF, and Algol. Around 1972 or 1973 I attended a talk John gave on “variable-free … Continue reading
Posted in FORTRAN, General, Software history
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FORTRAN 25th anniversary film online
I recently updated this item of the History of FORTRAN web site at the Computer History Museum to include an online copy of the video: FORTRAN 25th anniversary film, 1982, 12.5 minutes. Computer History Museum lot number X2843.2005, donated by … Continue reading
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The birth of the FORTRAN II subroutine
By comparing three versions of the memo (unsigned, but believed written by Irv Ziller) “Proposed Specifications for FORTRAN II for the 704″, dated August 28, September 25, and November 18, 1957, you can watch the design of the subroutine feature … Continue reading
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Stanford LISP 1.6; the original Standard LISP
Work on LISP spread from McCarthy’s original M.I.T. project to other projects at M.I.T. and then to other institutions as people moved on and word about the capabilities of the language spread. John Allen brought a snapshot of the M.I.T.’s … Continue reading
Posted in LISP, Software history
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Classic LISP books online
With the permission of The MIT Press, I have posted online copies of two classic LISP books on the History of Lisp website at the Computer History Museum: John McCarthy, Paul W. Abrahams, Daniel J. Edwards, Timothy P. Hart and … Continue reading
Posted in LISP, Software history
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