COBOL was one of the first programming languages designed to run on computers built by several different manufacturers. In December 1960 programmers at Remington Rand UNIVAC and at RCA successfully ran the same COBOL test programs on a Univac II and an RCA 501 computer.
This is the printout from the RCA demonstration. It contains two programs. One produces a profit and loss report for a corporation. It is a modification of a program developed by Warren G. Simmons of US Steel for a UNIVAC II.
According to the printout, the actual program used in the test was written by J. Farinelli. This was probably programmer Joseph D. Farinelli of US Steel. The second program, which computes cash sales and credit balances, was written by Carl H. Thorne Jr. of the General Services Administration for an RCA computer.
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