Embracing the Algol Effort in Czechoslovakia

In the 1950s, Czechoslovakian computing was more famous for its fault-tolerant computers, SAPO and EPOS, than for developments in automatic programming. However, the Algol effort did not go unnoticed there. It was quite the contrary, even though its appeal to Czechoslovakian computer programmers only became manifest in their work after the publication of the preliminary report on the algorithmic language in 1958. The publication of the full Algol 60 report was well noted and the "Algol craze" spread quickly in Czechoslovakia. This article traces the history of programming methods and techniques in Czechoslovakia until the first Czechoslovakian Algol compiler in the early 1960s.