Smithsonian Celebrates 50 Years of COBOL

Renowned D.C. institutions continue to progressively incorporate and exhibit nerdy memorabilia. The Library of Congress actually includes a Twitter archive, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History houses various computing artifacts, including Atari, IBM, Dell and Apple accessories. That same museum recently initiated a celebration of another computing movement, and it pertains to the geekiest of the geeky -- programmers.

Exactly 50 years ago, a select group of programmers from the public, private and government sectors embarked on a collaborative project to create a universal programming language. At the time, in 1960, computer manufacturers employed different programming languages, making it impossible -- for organizations and companies that owned varying models -- to effectively "maintain payrolls, prepare budgets, and track property." However, that group of visionary programmers subsequently originated the Common, Business-Oriented Language (COBOL).

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Smithsonian Celebrates 50 Years of COBOL originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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