[Ads-l] Antedating of "Fortran"

[Hugo]

Fred Shapiro wrote:

> Fortran (OED 1956)

> 1954 (title of document)  Specifications for the IBM mathematical FORmula
TRANslating system, FORTRAN (International Business Machines Corp.)

This is likely to be this "preliminary report", dated November 10, 1054:

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Knuth_Don_X4100/PDF_index/k-7-pdf/k-7-u2763-Backus-Prelim-FORTRAN.pdf

There may be a slightly earlier document/draft, as Wikipedia says:

> A draft specification for *The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating
System* was completed by mid-1954.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran#History

I didn't find anything earlier under:
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Fortran/

Hugo

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