Computing · 1957

FORTRAN

The first widely used high-level programming language.

John Backus's IBM team delivered an optimizing compiler for the IBM 704 whose output rivaled hand-written code. FORTRAN made scientific programming accessible and is still used in weather and physics codes.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

A-0 compiler 1952

What it led to 2

LISP 1958
Time-sharing 1961

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Computation per constant dollar, 1850-2006 Latest: 7.3B million units of computer power per 2006 $ (2003) Source: Nordhaus 2007, Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing, J. Econ. Hist. 67(1), Table 6

Fastest computer in the world Latest: 2.2×10¹⁸ operations per second (2026) Source: Wikipedia: List of fastest computers; Wikipedia: History of supercomputing