Where does this come from, and can I check it?

The United States Defense Department pushed a common business language so payroll programs could move between machines. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a technology fact?

Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

COBOL was designed by a committee in 1959

The United States Defense Department pushed a common business language so payroll programs could move between machines A committee of manufacturers and users met in 1959 and produced a language built around records, files and verbose English-like statements. Because it avoided machine-specific tricks, the same program could be compiled for different computers, which mattered to large purchasers. The language was standardised and revised for decades, and banks still run enormous amounts of it. It sits in Mondo's technology collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Britannica

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: programming-languages, cobol, business

COBOL was designed by a committee in 1959: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: The United States Defense Department pushed a common business language so payroll programs could move between machines. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.