1976
Design System Language , considered to be a forerunner of PostScript, appears.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1977
The ANSI standard for MUMPS -- M***achusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System -- appears. Used originally to handle medical records, MUMPS recognizes only a string data-type. Later renamed M.
The design competition that will produce Ada begins. Honeywell Bull's team, led by Jean Ichbiah, will win the competition.
Kim Harris and others set up FIG, the FORTH interest group. They develop FIG-FORTH, which they sell for around $20.
Sometime in the late 1970s , Kenneth Bowles produces UCSD Pascal, which makes Pascal available on PDP-11 and Z80-based computers.
Niklaus Wirth begins work on Modula, forerunner of Modula-2 and successor to Pascal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1978
AWK -- a text-processing language named after the designers, Aho, Weinberger, and Kernighan -- appears.
The ANSI standard for FORTRAN 77 appears.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1980
Smalltalk-80 appears.
Modula-2 appears.
Franz LISP appears.
Bjarne Stroustrup develops a set of languages -- collectively referred to as "C With Cl***es" -- that serve as the breeding ground for C++.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1981
Effort begins on a common dialect of LISP, referred to as Common LISP.
Japan begins the Fifth Generation Computer System project. The primary language is Prolog.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1982
ISO Pascal appears.
PostScript appears.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1983
Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation by Goldberg et al is published.
Ada appears . Its name comes from Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of the English poet Byron. She has been called the first computer programmer because of her work on Charles Babbage's analytical engine. In 1983, the Department of Defense directs that all new "mission-critical" applications be written in Ada.
In late 1983 and early 1984, Microsoft and Digital Research both release the first C compilers for microcomputers.
In July , the first implementation of C++ appears. The name is coined by Rick Mascitti.
In November , Borland's Turbo Pascal hits the scene like a nuclear blast, thanks to an advertisement in BYTE magazine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1984
A reference manual for APL2 appears. APL2 is an extension of APL that permits nested arrays.
1985
Forth controls the submersible sled that locates the wreck of the Titanic.
Vanilla SNOBOL4 for microcomputers is released.
Methods , a line-oriented Smalltalk for PCs, is introduced.
1986
Smalltalk/V appears--the first widely av ailable version of Smalltalk for microcomputers.
Apple releases Object Pascal for the Mac.
Borland releases Turbo Prolog.
Charles Duff releases Actor, an object-oriented language for developing Microsoft Windows applications.
Eiffel , another object-oriented language, appears.
C++ appears.
1987
Turbo Pascal version 4.0 is released.
1988
The specification for CLOS -- Common LISP Object System -- is published.
Niklaus Wirth finishes Oberon, his follow-up to Modula-2.
1989
The ANSI C specification is published.
C++ 2.0 arrives in the form of a draft reference manu al. The 2.0 version adds features such as multiple inheritance and pointers to members.
1990
C++ 2.1 , detailed in Annotated C++ Reference Manual by B. Stroustrup et al, is published. This adds templates and exception-handling features.
FORTRAN 90 includes such new elements as case statements and derived types.
Kenneth Iverson and Roger Hui present J at the APL90 conference.
1991
Visual Basic wins BYTE's Best of Show award at Spring COMDEX.
1992
Dylan -- named for Dylan Thomas -- an object-oriented language resembling Scheme, is released by Apple.
1993
ANSI releases the X3J4.1 technical report -- the first-draft proposal for (gulp) object-oriented COBOL. The standard is expected to be finalized in 1997.
1994
Microsoft incorporates Visual Basic for Applications into Excel.
1995
In February , ISO accepts the 1995 revision of the Ada language. Called Ada 95, it includes OOP features and support for real-time systems.
1996
Anticipated release of first ANSI C++ standard .
Design System Language , considered to be a forerunner of PostScript, appears.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1977
The ANSI standard for MUMPS -- M***achusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System -- appears. Used originally to handle medical records, MUMPS recognizes only a string data-type. Later renamed M.
The design competition that will produce Ada begins. Honeywell Bull's team, led by Jean Ichbiah, will win the competition.
Kim Harris and others set up FIG, the FORTH interest group. They develop FIG-FORTH, which they sell for around $20.
Sometime in the late 1970s , Kenneth Bowles produces UCSD Pascal, which makes Pascal available on PDP-11 and Z80-based computers.
Niklaus Wirth begins work on Modula, forerunner of Modula-2 and successor to Pascal.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1978
AWK -- a text-processing language named after the designers, Aho, Weinberger, and Kernighan -- appears.
The ANSI standard for FORTRAN 77 appears.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1980
Smalltalk-80 appears.
Modula-2 appears.
Franz LISP appears.
Bjarne Stroustrup develops a set of languages -- collectively referred to as "C With Cl***es" -- that serve as the breeding ground for C++.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1981
Effort begins on a common dialect of LISP, referred to as Common LISP.
Japan begins the Fifth Generation Computer System project. The primary language is Prolog.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1982
ISO Pascal appears.
PostScript appears.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1983
Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation by Goldberg et al is published.
Ada appears . Its name comes from Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of the English poet Byron. She has been called the first computer programmer because of her work on Charles Babbage's analytical engine. In 1983, the Department of Defense directs that all new "mission-critical" applications be written in Ada.
In late 1983 and early 1984, Microsoft and Digital Research both release the first C compilers for microcomputers.
In July , the first implementation of C++ appears. The name is coined by Rick Mascitti.
In November , Borland's Turbo Pascal hits the scene like a nuclear blast, thanks to an advertisement in BYTE magazine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1984
A reference manual for APL2 appears. APL2 is an extension of APL that permits nested arrays.
1985
Forth controls the submersible sled that locates the wreck of the Titanic.
Vanilla SNOBOL4 for microcomputers is released.
Methods , a line-oriented Smalltalk for PCs, is introduced.
1986
Smalltalk/V appears--the first widely av ailable version of Smalltalk for microcomputers.
Apple releases Object Pascal for the Mac.
Borland releases Turbo Prolog.
Charles Duff releases Actor, an object-oriented language for developing Microsoft Windows applications.
Eiffel , another object-oriented language, appears.
C++ appears.
1987
Turbo Pascal version 4.0 is released.
1988
The specification for CLOS -- Common LISP Object System -- is published.
Niklaus Wirth finishes Oberon, his follow-up to Modula-2.
1989
The ANSI C specification is published.
C++ 2.0 arrives in the form of a draft reference manu al. The 2.0 version adds features such as multiple inheritance and pointers to members.
1990
C++ 2.1 , detailed in Annotated C++ Reference Manual by B. Stroustrup et al, is published. This adds templates and exception-handling features.
FORTRAN 90 includes such new elements as case statements and derived types.
Kenneth Iverson and Roger Hui present J at the APL90 conference.
1991
Visual Basic wins BYTE's Best of Show award at Spring COMDEX.
1992
Dylan -- named for Dylan Thomas -- an object-oriented language resembling Scheme, is released by Apple.
1993
ANSI releases the X3J4.1 technical report -- the first-draft proposal for (gulp) object-oriented COBOL. The standard is expected to be finalized in 1997.
1994
Microsoft incorporates Visual Basic for Applications into Excel.
1995
In February , ISO accepts the 1995 revision of the Ada language. Called Ada 95, it includes OOP features and support for real-time systems.
1996
Anticipated release of first ANSI C++ standard .