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AMGINE

DEIFISSALC

NIOCTIB

MACS

LAITNEDIFNOC

REHPICED

ESIUGSID

TIMSNART

SEVITANRETLA

HCUOT

TSURT

Definition #67 COBOL Pronounced “cobble”

COBOL

It’s the birthday of one of the people who helped invent the modern computer: Grace Hopper, born in New York City (1906).

She began tinkering around with machines when she was seven years old, dismantling several alarm clocks around the house to see how they worked.

She was especially good at math in school.

She studied math and physics in college, and eventually got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale.

Then World War II broke out, and Hopper wanted to serve her country. Her father had been an admiral in the Navy, so she applied to a division of the Navy called WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service.

She was assigned to work on a machine that might help calculate the trajectory of bombs and rockets.

She learned how to program that early computing machine, and wrote the first instruction manual for its use.

She went on to work on several more versions of the same machine. In 1952, Hopper noticed that most computer errors were the result of humans making mistakes in writing programs.

So she attempted to solve that problem by writing a new computer language that used ordinary words instead of just numbers.

It was one of the first computer languages, and the first designed to help ordinary people write computer programs, and she went on to help develop it into the computer language known as COBOL, or “Common Business-Oriented Language.”

ABCdarian#3

Just for fun, try writing one of these alphabet sentences (containing all 26 letters)
in code using the e-alphabet symbols shown above:

ALPHABET SENTENCES

How razorback-jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts!

All questions asked by five watch experts amazed the judge.

Poet’s Notebook

Poet’s Notebook

Scribble
Dribble
In the mire.

Scavenge
Stonehenge
Mysteries.

Poet’s Code
Symbols told
Grab you by the Toes!

Jeanne Poland