John Backus BY: RENEA YOUNG

ABOUT: John Warner Backus  Born December 3, 1924  In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania  Died March 17, 2007  At the age of 82 at his home in Ashland, Oregon  Was an American Computer Science  Went to University of Virginia/ Studied Chemistry  Then quit to join the army  Began medical training at Haverford College  During his internship at the hospital, he was diagnosed with a bone tumor. Successfully removed

Continue… John Warner Backus  After moving to New York City, he trained to be a radio technician and became interested in mathematics  Graduated from Columbia University with a Master’s degree in Mathematics in 1949  Later, joined International Business Machines Corporation

Achievements:  First three at IBM, worked on the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator  SSEC  In 1953, he developed the language Speedcoding  Was important in the development of compliers  Developed ALGOL 58 and influenced ALGOL 60  Short for ALGOrithmic Language

FORTRAN  Is a high-level programming language  Stands for FORmula TRANslating System  Directed a team that invented the FORTRAN  His Team Consist of: Irving Ziller Robert Nelson Harlan Herrick Richard Goldberg Sheldon F. Best Roy Nutt Lois Haibt David Sayre

Backus-Naur Form (BNF)  Invented by John Backus and Peter Naur  Also known as Backus Normal Form  Is one of the main notation techniques for context-free grammar  OTHER BACKUS-NAUR FORM: Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) Extension of Backus-Naur Form Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF)

AWARDS  Named an IBM Fellow  Awarded W. W. McDowell Award  Received the National Medal of Science  Awarded ACM Turing Award  Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences  Awarded degree honoris causa from Universite Henri Poincare  In Nancy (France)  Awarded Draper Prize  Awarded Computer History Museum Fellow Award  June 1, Asteroid 6830 Johnbackus named in his honor