First FORTRAN Program Runs in 1954

The first successful FORTRAN program runs September 20, 1954, 66 years ago. FORTRAN, which is an acronym for "FORmula TRANslator," was invented at IBM by a group led by John Backus. FORTRAN's purpose was to simplify the programming process by allowing the programmer ("coder") to use simple algebra-like expressions when writing software. It also took over the task of keeping track of where instructions were kept in memory--a very laborious and error-prone procedure when undertaken by humans. FORTRAN is rarely in use today and used some times in scientific and engineering applications, making it one of the oldest programming languages still in use.