I've been feeling like rambling, so it's time for a classic ramble. This time we are looking at the origins of books about computers. More specifically, computer books targeted at a general audience. Along the way we stumble into the first public disclosure of digital computers, the first intentionally unimportant machine, and wild speculation about the future of mechanical brains.

No sources listed this time, because I want the journey to be a surprise!

This is a hefty one. I usually try to keep things as accessible as possible, but this time we have to get a little more technical than usual. We are picking up in 1964, with the first proposals for a new version of ALGOL. From there we sail through the fraught waters of ALGOL X, Y, W, and finally 68. Along the way we see how a language evolves over time, and how people and politics mesh with technical issues.

Selected Sources:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/1061112.1061118 - Successes and Failures of the ALGOL Effort

https://sci-hub.se/10.1109/MAHC.2010.8 - Cold War Origins of IFIP

https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/algol/algol_bulletin/ - The ALGOL Bulletin

ALGOL is one of those topics that's haunted the show for a while. It comes up any time we talk about programming languages, and with good reason. Many of the features and ideas found in modern languages have their roots in ALGOL. Despite that influence, ALGOL itself remains somewhat obscure. It never reached the highs of a C or LISP.

In this series we are going to look at ALGOL from 1958 all up to 1968, keeping a careful eye on how the language evolved, how it's problems were addressed, and how new problems were introduced.

Selected Sources:

https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/ALGOL/paper/Backus-Syntax_and_Semantics_of_Proposed_IAL.pdf - Backus, 1958 IAL report

https://algol60.org/reports/algol60_rr.pdf - ALGOL 1960 Report

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/1060960.1060966 - Cleaning Up Algol