ABSTRACT
Software is defined by Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as “the instructions which control what a computer does; computer programs.” Using that definition we can say that the first software was developed in 1937 by George Stibitz of the Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs), New York City, when he constructed a demonstration 1-bit binary adder using relays. This adding machine was followed in November 1939 by John V. Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry’s prototype 16-bit adder at Iowa State University. This was the first machine to calculate using vacuum tubes. In 1951, Grace Murray Hopper invented the first high level language compiler and then in 1957 Fortran (Formula Translation Language) was developed by John Backus and his team at IBM. Software development became possible for a large number of people. The first areas where software development was focused were military uses such as cryptography and ballistics in addition to solving scientific problems.
