If you are in the field of technology then you must have heard about Fortran. But do you know Fortran Full Form, History of Fortran? If you don’t know then today, we are going to talk about this. Along with this, we will also tell the characteristics and uses of it. So, stay with us.
What is the Full Form of FORTRAN in Computer
The full form of FORTRAN is ‘Formula Translation’. Which is called sutra translation in Hindi. It is a high-level language used in scientific and engineering applications. FORTRAN was developed by John Backus in 1957. It was created in Bell Laboratory. FORTRAN is the first high level programming language. This program was originally created for writing high performance computing programs.
FORTRAN History
Tabular machines were replaced by computers in 1950s. This was the beginning of the computer industry. The computer industry had to face a problem in the initial stage itself. Software development because computers understand only 0, 1, which was known as assembly language. The code written just to do a small calculation contained hundreds of 0’s and 1’s. Very complex phenomena occur in software. For which crores of people used to read and write 0 and 1.
Starting of FORTRAN
In 1953, John Bakus, working at IBM, thought of creating a practical language from assembly language. He started working on this at IBM itself. About 3 years later, in 1956, he developed the world’s first high level programming language. Whose name was Fortran. So that the computer can easily understand the instructions. Finally, the FORTRAN language was released in 1957. It was an algebra-based language. It was standardized by the American National Standard Institute in 1966 and it became the first standard language in the world.
At the same time, IBM developed its 701 computers. Although the computer was fast there were not enough tasks to keep it busy. There is a need to completely understand the total dependence on computer software and computer hardware. This was not an easy task as there were very few experts in this field. This task was solved by Backus 3 years after joining IBM. In late 1953 John W. Backus presented a proposal to his superiors at IBM to develop a more practical alternative to assembly language for programming their IBM 704 mainframe computer.
Teams for FORTRAN
The team included programmers Richard Goldberg, Sheldon F. Best, Harlan Herrick, Peter Sheridan, Roy Nutt, Robert Nelson, Irving Ziller, Lois Hubbard, and David Sayer. John Backus wanted a programming language that was as close as possible to human language. FORTRAN began as a digital code interpreter for the IBM 701 and was originally name as Speedcoding. Guided by the genius of Backus, a programming language was developed that was similar to a combination of English Shorthand and Algebra. It was similar to the algebraic formulas that scientists and engineers used daily in their work.
Evolution of FORTRAN
By 1954 FORTRAN was invented by John Backus and his team for IBM in South San Jose California. It was released commercially in 1957. The first computer to run a compiler was the IBM 704, which John Backus helped design. The team used the name FORTRAN because one of their major purposes was formula translation. The language came complete with control structures and facilities for input output. FORTRAN became popular very fast
Characteristics of FORTRAN Language
- This language is simple to learn and easy to understand.
- You can easily transfer this program from one computer to another machine.
- It supports Numerical analysis, modular, Structured, and Array programming.
- Fortran provides a variety of natural forms for complex mathematical functions to be expressed.
- It allows programmers to organize storage allocation.
- Unlike assembly or machine language, it does not require programmers to do difficult coding., which makes it even better.
- Its performance is better than assembly and machine coding.
What is the role of the invention of FORTRAN in the improvement of human life?
The first FORTRAN compiler in 1905 was a milestone in the history of computing because computers had very small memories like 15KB and were very slow. It became the most widely used computer language with compilers available for almost every type of computer. Fortran 77 was quite good at handling character strings as well as numbers and also has powerful file handling and input output facilities. This is compared to before.
It established the standards for all major programming languages. The first step in achieving portability was to ensure that a standard form of the programming language was acceptable everywhere. Fortran began to be used for programming air traffic control systems, military applications, parallel computer research, payroll calculations, scientific applications, and video games. The programs enable the ease with which they can be moved from one computer system to another.
