Intoduction to the 1960's Chronology of Events Project Main Menu 1964-1965

1960 - 1963

1960

Since 1952 Grace Murray Hopper had been developing a series of programming languages that increasingly used natural language-like phrases to express the operations of business datajoe wegstein processing of which, FLOWMATIC was the last one. Others had also taken on the challenge, including IBM that had produced a language named COMMERCIAL TRANSLATOR. From these bases an industry-wide team -- Conference on Data System Languages (CODASYL) -- led by Joe Wegstein of NBS (now NIST) developed a new language in a very short time and created the first standardized business computer programming language, COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) and that same year the second of the mathematical languages, ALGOL 60 was also developed, also by a committee.
1960 marked the end of first generation of computers (vacuum tube driven) gave way to the second generation using transistors.

1961

The work on integrated circuits by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce came to fruition in 1961 when the first commercially available integrated circuits became available from the Fairchild Corporation. From this date forward computers would incorporate ICs instead of individual transistors or other components.

While operating systems (originally called monitors or supervisors) had been developed as a means of improving the throughput of computers in the late 1950s, the users were frustrated by their lack of intimacy with the computer. To solve the problem of controlling the computer and to give the power  back in the hands of the user, Fernando Corbató, MIT, produced CTSS (Compatible Time Sharing System) for the IBM 7090/94, the first effective time-sharing system.

1962

In Great Britain the Atlas computer at the University of Manchester became operational; it is the first machine to use virtual memory and paging.

1963

By 1963 the process of standardization of the elements of the industry was becoming prevalent and among the first was a standard for a code for information interchange (ASCII). For the first time there was a means for computers to interchange information.

1963 was the year in which the IRE and AIEE merged to form the IEEE
 
 
 

Intoduction to the 1960's Chronology of Events Project Main Menu 1964-1965