FLOW-MATIC

Flow-Matic was one of the first programming languages designed for business data processing. It was developed by Grace Hopper in the 1950s, and was used by the UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II computers. Flow-Matic was based on English, with a limited vocabulary of about 50 words. Programs were written as a series of English sentences, with each sentence representing a single step in the program. Flow-Matic was not a general-purpose programming language, but was designed specifically for business data processing. It had no support for complex data structures or for mathematical operations. Despite its limitations, Flow-Matic was a significant step forward in the development of programming languages. It was the first language to use English as its base, and it was also the first to use a limited vocabulary. These features made it much easier for programmers to read and understand programs written in Flow-Matic. Flow-Matic was eventually replaced by more powerful and flexible programming languages, but it remains an important part of the history of computing.