Computers need programming languages to function. That’s just a simple fact of life. However, these languages didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. They were developed by people for explicit purposes.

Tony Brooker, the mathematician and computer scientist who designed the programming language for the world’s first commercial computer, died Nov. 20 at a nursing home in Hexham, England. He was 94.

This video is part of Electronic Design's 70th Anniversary series. This is a bit like Mel Brooks History of the World, Part I for programmers. I've been writing a number of articles and recording ...

C. 2500 BCE: Sumerian abacus -- c. 700 BC: Scytale -- c. 150: Antikythera mechanism -- c. 60: Programmable robot -- c. 850: "On Deciphering Cryptographic Messages ...

Sixty years ago, on May 1, 1964, at 4 am in the morning, a quiet revolution in computing began at Dartmouth College. That’s when mathematicians John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz successfully ran the ...