Fortran 1 "Programmer's Reference Manual" published 15 Oct 1956

40 years ago today, on 15 October 1956, IBM published the (first)
Fortran 1 Programmer's Reference Manual". The cover read


PROGRAMMER's REFERENCE MANUAL


(large) Fortran


AUTOMATIC CODING SYSTEM
FOR THE IBM 704


It was 51 pages long. At the time an IBM group led by John Backus had
just designed (invented) the Fortran language, and was busy developing
the (first) Fortran compiler. The compiler was written in IBM 704
assembler.


To give the flavor of the language as it was then, the following example
>from the manual:


Given an N x N square matrix A, to find those off-diagonal
elements which are symmetric and to write them on binary tape:


REWIND 3
DO 3 I = 1,N
DO 3 J = 1,N
IF(A(I,J)-A(J,I)) 3,20,3
3 CONTINUE
END FILE 3
MORE PROGRAM


20 IF(i-J) 21,3,21
21 WRITE TAPE 3,I,J, A(I,J)
GO TO 3




Remarkably, this first compiler was in fact a rather good _optimizing_
compiler:


"The degree of optimization [...] achieved was really
not equalled again in subsequent compilers until the
mid-60s when the work of Fran Allen and John Cocke
began to be used in fairly sophisticated optimizing
compilers.


[...]


The index register allocation procedure [...] was at
least as optimal as any procedure developed during
the next 15 years, and it probably is in fact optimal."




However, some parts of software development haven't changed a bit to
this day ;=) :


"We estimated then [in late 1954 and early 1955] that
the compiler would be done in about six months, and
this six-month interval was to remain the estimated
time to completion for the next two years."


"By the summer of 1956 what appeared to be the imminent
completion of the project started us worrying (for
perhaps the first time) about documentation. [...]
the "Programmer's Reference Manual" [...] appeared in
a glossy cover, handsomely printed."




All quotes above are from the fascinating paper by John Backus and the
following commentary and discussion, which together comprise chapter 2
of


Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming
Languages Conference, held 1-3 June 1978, published as


Richard L Wexelblat, ed,
"History of Programming Languages"
Academic Press, New York, 1981
ISBN 0-12-745040-8






- Jonathan Thornburg <bkis@island.net> (personal E-mail)
    U of British Columbia / Physics Dept / <thornbur@theory.physics.ubc.ca>
[What's MORE PROGRAM ? I'd look it up but my 1978 SIGPLANs are buried
in a warehouse. -John]
--

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