Our daily life is simple and easy, thanks to the latest technologies! It is hard to imagine our lives without technologies because of how much we are dependent on them! Introduction of computer led to a technological revolution that has shaped our modern world. Whenever we interact with any device, let it be a mobile phone or a computer, we are interacting with software. Let’s take a quick look at the history of software development.

 

A brief history of software development:

  • The first software was compiled by Tom Kilburn, who was a computer scientist. This took place during the late ’40s at the University of Manchester in England, UK. The device for which the software was built was one of the early versions of the computer and it was programmed to only perform mathematical calculations. This was done with the help of machine code instructions. The software took around 52 minutes to provide the mathematical solution that was entered.
  • For another decade after its introduction, punch cards with holes were used for programming the computers. Each hole specifies the certain machine code instructions. The first of the programming languages of a higher level, named Fortran, was released in 1957. The name “software” was coined by John Turkey, a statistician in the following year. This was done in an article that was regarding programming. In the next two decades, the world saw the introduction of various programming languages such as C, COBOL, Pascal, and BASIC etc.
  • It was the introduction of personal computers during the ’70s and ’80s that made software become important. During 1977, Apple first released its revolutionary product, Apple II. The first ever software spreadsheet for these computers was known as VisiCalc, which was created with assembly language. This was in 1979. Most of the important software that we use today was released during the mid-’80s.
  • Open source software is considered as a significant innovation in the field of software development was first introduced during the ’90s, all thanks to the internet. 1991 saw the release of Linux Kernel that established itself as the basis for the open source for the Linux OS. The late ’90s saw an increasing interest in open source software. Sun Microsystems released Java during 1995.
  • The introduction of mobile was first made in 1973. IBM first released its “Smartphone” during 1993. The world also saw the revolution in the computing world with the introduction of Apple’s iPhone, which is when mobile applications found a stable platform to expand. The use of software increased with these revolutionary changes.

It can’t be denied that software indeed is important in our daily lives. If you need to build a software for your startup, you can engage a freelance web designer Singapore. All devices, businesses of all industries, such as medicine, aerospace, and education etc use software for efficient functioning. Programming languages such as COBOL and C are still surviving since their early inception. On the other hand, programming languages such as Python and Java are recent languages. But, they have become important programming languages and are used in software development. There are hundreds and thousands of programming languages, such as Apple’s Swift is new in the scene and it definitely seems interesting. One thing can be said about software development is that it is definitely a diverse and ever-expanding field.