History of Programming Languages - The 1940s

The 1940s

In the 1940s, the first recognizably modern, electrically powered computers were created. The limited speed and memory capacity forced programmers to write hand tuned assembly language programs. It was eventually realized that programming in assembly language required a great deal of intellectual effort and was error-prone.

In 1948, Konrad Zuse published a paper about his programming language Plankalkül. However, it was not implemented in his lifetime and his original contributions were isolated from other developments.

Some important languages that were developed in this period include:

• 1943 - Plankalkül (Konrad Zuse), designed, but unimplemented for a half-century
• 1943 - ENIAC, Electric Numerical Integrator And Computer, machine-specific codeset appearing in 1948.
• 1949 - 1954 — a series of machine-specific mnemonic instruction sets, like ENIAC's, beginning in 1949 with C-10 for BINAC (which later evolved into UNIVAC). Each codeset, or instruction set, was tailored to a specific manufacturer.