Programmers at the Console of a UNIVAC I, with Unityper and Tape Drives
Fifty years ago, each computer maker used its own programming languages to tell a computer what to do. In 1959, a group of programmers devised COBOL, a COmmon, Business-Oriented Language. Programs written in COBOL could run on more than one manufacturer’s computer. In a 1960 test, the same COBOL programs ran successfully on two computers built by different manufacturers.
A small group of programmers from the computer industry and its clients wrote the new language of COBOL. Both corporations and government agencies needed to maintain payrolls, prepare budgets, and track property, traditional aspects of business data processing. The Department of Defense was especially interested as it was one of few organizations to buy computers from different makers. COBOL was quickly adopted there, in other federal agencies, and in private industry. Additional common languages, such as ALGOL and standard forms of FORTRAN, were developed for scientists and engineers.
Written initially for the short range, COBOL proved so useful that it dominated much of government and business data processing for decades. Millions of banking transactions are still processed daily with COBOL programs. As the use of common programming languages became standard, a flourishing independent computer software industry emerged.
Proposing COBOL
Mary Hawes, a Burroughs Corporation programmer, called in March 1959 for computer users and manufacturers to create a new computer language—one that could run on different brands of computers and perform accounting tasks such as payroll calculations, inventory control, and records of credits and debits.
Attendees at a subsequent meeting asked Charles Phillips of the U.S. Department of Defense if his agency would sponsor a formal conference of the broader computer community. Phillips agreed, and in May 1959 about 40 representatives of computer users and manufacturers met at the Pentagon. There the Short Range Committee of the Conference on Data Systems Languages formed. Funded by the government, its subcommittees in 1959 prepared the general outlines of the language.
One planning group met in New York and Boston to prepare specifications for the new programming language they named COBOL. They drew on earlier computer languages for business—Remington Rand UNIVAC’s FLOW-MATIC, already in use, and IBM’s Commercial Translator, not yet implemented. FLOW-MATIC originated with a group headed by Grace Murray Hopper, who believed that computer programs should be easily intelligible. Commands in FLOW-MATIC and COBOL were written to resemble ordinary English
Page fromFirst Draft of COBOL, November, 1959
Courtesy of Howard Bromberg
Getting COBOL to Run
Proposing a computer language and actually getting its programs to run are two different challenges. During 1960, teams at the Philadelphia office of Remington Rand Univac and at the RCA 501 Systems Center in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, worked tirelessly to get COBOL working. They wrote COBOL compilers, highly specialized programs that translated general COBOL instructions into machine-specific code. They then tested programs written in both machine code and COBOL to ensure that they worked correctly.
The COBOL project brought together a diverse group—men, women, African Americans, and Asian Americans. At Remington Rand UNIVAC, team members used the room-sized Univac I and Univac II computers. Grace Hopper, shown at center right in the first photograph, directed the group. Programs were entered on reels of magnetic tape, using a special form of typewriter called a Unityper.
โปรแกรมบัญชี อาคารชุด
โปรแกรม หมู่บ้านจัดสรร
โปรแกรมบัญชีแยกประเภท
ท่าน มีปัญหาเหล่านี้หรือไม่
ข้อพิจารณาเลือกซอฟท์แวร์
คำถามข้อสงสัยซอฟท์บิส
ตัวอย่าง ลูกค้าของเรา
แนะนำ เอ-ซอฟท์บิส
ข้อมูล บริษัท
ผู้ก่อตั้ง ผู้บริหาร ทีมงาน
ประวัติ ตามช่วงเวลา
วิวัฒนาการ ซอฟท์บิส+
การชำระเงิน บัญชีธนาคาร
สื่อโฆษณา ซอฟท์บิส+
ของที่ระลึกขอบคุณลูกค้า
กิจกรรมด้านสังคม
เพิ่มเติมเกี่ยวกับซอฟท์บิส
รวมลิ้งค์ โซเชียลเน็ทเวร์ค
พิพิธภัณฑ์ Softbiz History
ปฏิทินวันหยุดประจำปี 2560
