Celebrating 70 Years of Fortran
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Fortran turns 70, with a celebratory workshop at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester.
The Fortran programming language marks 70 years since its first manual was published on October 15, 2026. The Institute of Computing for Climate Science will host a free workshop on December 1, 2026, at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, UK, from 14:30-18:15 with a keynote by Damian Rouson, lightning talks, and breakout discussions. Registration closes November 9, 2026.
Fortran remains central to nuclear engineering, weather and climate forecasting, and materials science.
What commenters are saying
Commenters shared fond memories of FORTRAN IV and FORTRAN II on IBM 1620, 7090, and CDC 3500 systems from the 1960s. Many noted how the language evolved from early constructs like COMMON blocks and implicit integer variables (I-N) to modern forms. One pointed out the convention for i, j, k loop variables predates Fortran in mathematical notation. Another highlighted foundational libraries such as BLAS and LAPACK. A few joked about the punch-card era.