
Origin of "Software" - maxwell
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000805/mathtrek.asp
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gruseom
Cool article!

The 1958 usage doesn't prove that Tukey invented the word "software", just
that it wasn't invented later. I'm inclined to believe it, though, because of
the corroborating fact that he also invented the word "bit". That's pretty
compelling. And impressive.

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baddox
Interesting article, although it seems to me that the term itself is rather
self-explanatory, not a term that needed to be coined. "Ware" is just an item,
and "hardware" had surely been around long before computers. So once computers
came around, I assume people instinctively referred to tangible computer
equipment as "hardware." Calling the intangible elements "software" probably
soon followed. I wonder when terms like "firmware" or "midware" originated?

