Today in #ComputingHistory in 1956, IBM released the first FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) manual, six months before the compiler was even ready. Developed under John Backus, FORTRAN introduced the idea that computers could be programmed in a high-level, human-readable language. The manual’s early release let scientists and engineers begin learning and preparing programs before they could actually run them, setting the stage for the 1957 debut of the revolutionary FORTRAN compiler, which transform