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In 1953, Paul Niquette coined the term "software."
At the time, computers were colloquially called "giant brains" but they were inert until a program inputted semipermanent routines in the computer's memory.
http://www.niquette.com/books/softword/part0.htm
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At the time, computers were colloquially called "giant brains" but they were inert until a program inputted semipermanent routines in the computer's memory.
http://www.niquette.com/books/softword/part0.htm
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It wasn't really possible to move a program from one computer to another one.
Niquette's coinage - a play on "hardware" - came to him while he was 19 years old, programming UCLA's SWAC, and it made him chuckle at the time.
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Niquette's coinage - a play on "hardware" - came to him while he was 19 years old, programming UCLA's SWAC, and it made him chuckle at the time.
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He found the word "too informal to write and often embarrassing to say" but slowly started to incorporate it into lectures and interviews. He had a reputation as a practical joker and his colleagues largely laughed it off.
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The story of the coinage is in the introduction ("Chapter 0") of Niquette's online memoir, which I just skimmed. It's an engaging and witty history of some of the seminal moments in computing!
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