History

[Michael Metcalf]

There are often questions here that relate to the history of Fortran and to
the development of its various standards: "why was feature x
included/excluded?", "which statement was in which standard?", "was there a
conspiracy to do this, that or the other?", etc. Answers to all these and
more can be obtained
from the literature. I have tried to assemble a short list of books and
journals that should be relatively easy to find or obtain in a good academic
library, in the hope that it can be of service to such enquirers.

Additions/corrections are invited.

Regards,

Mike Metcalf

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An early (1957) paper by John Backus was republished in:

Programming Systems and Languages
(S. Rosen ed.),
McGraw Hill, 1967,
pp. 29-47.

The two first textbooks (for Fortran II) were:

A Guide to FORTRAN Programming,
McCracken, Daniel D.
Wiley, 1961.

and

A FORTRAN Primer
Organick, E.I.
Addison-Wesley, 1963

The early history of Fortran (Fortran I to Fortran 77) is documented in:

Annals of History of Computing,
6, 1, January, 1984 (whole issue)

History of Programming Languages
(R.L. Wexelblat ed.),
Academic Press, 1981,
pp. 25-74.

The History of FORTRAN I, II, and III.
Backus, John.
In ACM Sigplan History of Programming Languages Conference -
Preprints, published in ACM Sigplan Notices 13(8),
pp. 165-180, August 1978.

Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals
Sammet, Jean E.
Prentice Hall, 1969

A summary appears in:

Encyclopedia of Science and Technology,
Academic Press, 1986,
vol. 5, under 'Fortran'

or in

Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, (revised edition)
Academic Press, 1992,
vol. 6, under 'Fortran', pp. 632-637.

See also

Programming language standardisation,
I.D. Hill and B.L. Meek, eds.,
Ellis Horwood 1980,
W.S Brainerd, in Chapter 2 (Fortran), p. 34.

A snapshot of the plans for Fortran 90 (then known as Fortran 8x), as
foreseen in 1982, appears in:

Fortran Optimization,
M. Metcalf
Academic Press, 1982,
Chapter 12, pp. 194-210.

A later snapshot appears in the Revised Edition of 1986.

The story of Fortran 90 is related in:

Numerical Recipes in Fortran 90
Cambridge University Press, 1996
Foreword, pp. x-xvi,

and in less detail in:

Fortran 90/95 Explained,
M. Metcalf & J. Reid
Oxford University Press,
Chapter 1, pp. 3-8.

as well as in an article originally published by the late Brian Meek
in
"Fortran Forum" in 1990 (just before Fortran 90 was adopted) and now
at:

http://www.fortran.com/fortran/forsaga.html,

and in the

Handbook of Programming Languages
Volume II: Imperative Programming Languages
Peter H. Salus, Editor,
Part I: Fortran (by Walt Brainerd)
MacMillan, 1998

Further background information is contained in the articles devoted
to Fortran 90 that comprised a whole issue of the journal:

"Computer Standards & Interfaces", 18,
North Holland/Elsevier, 1996.