NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/lang/fortran/4328

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 1.7 KB | 38 lines

Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Path: sparky!uunet!pmafire!mica.inel.gov!ux1!news.byu.edu!hamblin.math.byu.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!lanl!cochiti.lanl.gov!jlg
From: [e-mail] (J. Giles)
Subject: Re: The History of Fortran
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:32:36 GMT
Lines: 25

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Bill Silvert) writes:
|> In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
|>
|> >Can anyone suggest any books or references on the history of
|> >Fortran?  I would be curious to know such a things as what machines
|> >it was first written for, who this person Hollerith
|> >is, etc.
|>
|> Hollerith predates Fortran by many years.  He was a US census official
|> who came up with the idea of using punched cards to store census data.

Actually, the idea he came up with was to automate the census by
using tabulating machines.  In fact, he invented the very *idea* of
tabulating machines themselves.  The use of cards was a matter of
convenience: there were already automated devices for manupulating
money - these bill sorters and other hardware could be directly
incorporated into his new machinery.  The idea of representing
the information as *holes* in the paper/cardboard "bills" was
*not* Hollerith's (nor was it Jacquard's - whose loom Hollerith
got the idea from - it came from the age-old use of holes-in-paper
to mark the positioning of required pegs in automated musical
instruments).

--
J. Giles