Editing John Backus (section)

==Fortran==
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After moving to [[New York City]] he trained initially as a [[radio]] technician and became interested in mathematics. He graduated from [[Columbia University]] with a bachelor's degree in 1949 and a master's degree in 1950, both in mathematics,<ref name="amturing.acm.org"/><ref>{{Cite web|title=John Backus|url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/backus.html|access-date=2021-10-02|website=www.columbia.edu}}</ref> and joined [[IBM]] in 1950. During his first three years, he worked on the [[IBM SSEC|Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC)]]; his first major project was to write a program to calculate positions of the [[Moon]]. In 1953, Backus developed the language [[Speedcoding]], the first high-level language created for an IBM computer, to aid in software development for the [[IBM 701]] computer.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Allen|first=F.E.|title=The History of Language Processor Technology in IBM|journal=IBM Journal of Research and Development|volume=25|issue=5|date=September 1981|pages=535–548|doi=10.1147/rd.255.0535|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Programming was very difficult at this time, and in 1954 Backus assembled a team to define and develop [[Fortran]] for the [[IBM 704]] computer. [[Fortran]] was the first high-level programming language to be put to broad use. This widely used language made computers practical and accessible machines for scientists and others without requiring them to have deep knowledge of the machinery.<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Backus {{!}} Lemelson |url=https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/john-backus#:~:text=John%20Backus%20developed%20Fortran,%20or,deep%20knowledge%20of%20the%20machinery. |access-date=2023-02-07 |website=lemelson.mit.edu}}</ref>