Early languages
Programming languages are the languages in which a
programmer writes the instructions that the computer
will ultimately execute. The earliest programming
languages were assembly languages, not far removed from
the binary-encoded instructions directly executed by the
machine hardware. Users soon (beginning in the
mid-1950s) invented more convenient languages.
FORTRAN
The early language FORTRAN (Formula Translator) was
originally much like assembly language; however, it
allowed programmers to write algebraic expressions
instead of coded instructions for arithmetic operations.
As learning to program computers became increasingly
important in the 1960s, a stripped down
"basic" version of FORTRAN called BASIC
(Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was
written by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at
Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S., to
teach novices simple programming skills. BASIC quickly
spread to other academic institutions, and, beginning
about 1980, versions of BASIC for personal computers
allowed even students at elementary schools to learn the
fundamentals of programming.
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