Oral History of John Backus

Computer History Museum

Why leaders watch it

A pioneer describes leading a team that built the first major programming language.

Grady Booch interviews John Backus, who led the IBM team that created FORTRAN in 1957, for the Computer History Museum in 2006. Backus describes the development of the first successful high-level language and its compiler. The interview runs 88 minutes.

Topics: Historic leaders & pioneers

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