Cobol is 50

December 16th, 2010 by alacy

On December 6, 1960, COBOL was first used on two different makes of computers, proving that compatibility across systems could be achieved.

I have a lot of memories about COBOL. My first post college job included having to program in COBOL, which was strange considering I didn’t have any knowledge of COBOL and they knew that when they hired me.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/smithsonian-celebrates-cobols-50th-anniversary-with-new-website/68101/


2 Responses to “Cobol is 50”

  1. steve Says:

    Wow — how did that happen? 50 years? It was just last week I was in college learning Fortran. Where did the time go?

  2. alacy Says:

    The first FORTRAN compiler was delivered in April 1957, so it is older than COBOL. But it only run on IBM computers until 1966.

    While FORTRAN was the second, the first computer language I learned was ALGOL, which was designed in 1958.