[SIGCIS-Members] Peter Naur papers (ALGOL 60)

[Paul McJones]

Dear David,

I agree wholeheartedly about the value of this material. Although Naur’s reporting in the HOPL article was extremely thorough, these documents let you “look over his shoulder”. Another avenue worth exploring is Mike Woodger’s papers. His September 1983 note to Naur (see https://datamuseum.dk/bits/30009256) says:

I should tell you that, on my retirement from NPL in March 1983, I had to leave “all” my papers behind; in particular history of Algol 60 etc.

However, NPL has agreed that they can be kept, catalogued, in the Archives of the Library of the Science Museum, South Kensington, London (which is a permanent ‘home’). Public access is assured.

This seems to be the catalog entry for Woodger’s complete collection, but it’s not obvious to me which folders contain historical Algol 60 materials:

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/documents/aa110069606/national-physical-laboratory-archive

Perhaps someone with nearby could take a look.


Paul

> On Nov 10, 2025, at 12:26 PM, david nofre <d.nofre at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Paul,
> 
> Thank you very much for sharing this with us. This is very valuable material. Very few participants in the early days of the Algol project have left behind personal archival material. 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> David Nofre
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 10 Nov 2025, 20:38 Paul McJones via Members, <members at lists.sigcis.org <mailto:members at lists.sigcis.org>> wrote:
>> The References section of Peter Naur’s paper “The European Side of the Last Phase of the Development of ALGOL 60” in the first HOPL conference [1] includes an item that begins:
>> 
>> ALGOL 60 documents (1959–1960). Unpublished technical memoranda prepared in connection with the ALGOL 60 conference in Paris, 1960, Jan. 11–16. During the conference the available documents were numbered 1 to 30. Here the numbers 31 and 201 to 221 have been used for further related documents.
>> 
>> and continues with a long numbered sequence of items.
>> 
>> [1] R. L. Wexelblat, editor. History of Programming Languages I. ACM, New York, 1981. https://dl.acm.org/doi/book/10.1145/800025
>> 
>> 
>> I’ve long wished I could see the actual items. Recently I learned that Naur's son Thorkil donated Naur’s papers to the Niels Bohr Institute and scanned and curated all the ALGOL 60 papers (plus some related ALGOL 58 items) and posted them online at the Dansk Datahistorisk Forenings (Danish Data History Association):
>> 
>> Peter Naur og Algol 60. (Danish: Peter Naur on Algol 60)
>> https://datamuseum.dk/wiki/Peter_Naur_og_Algol_60
>> 
>> An overview of Algol 60 development, sources, and Peter Naur's involvement.
>> 
>> Peter Naur. Hvorledes Algol 60 blev til (Danish: How Algol 60 was created). Colloquium at the Datalogisk Institut, 10 March 1972.
>> Transcript. https://datamuseum.dk/wiki/Peter_Naur_Algol_60_DIKU_Kollokvium_1972-03-10
>> Audio. https://datamuseum.dk/wiki/Bits:30009181
>> 
>> Peter Naur Algol 60 Documents. (Danish)
>> https://datamuseum.dk/wiki/Peter_Naur_Algol_60_Documents
>> 
>> The papers and notes by Naur and others during his involvement with Algol 60 during 1959 and 1960 (plus a 1970 letter to Donald Knuth serving as a key to many of the documents).
>> 
>> Most of the actual papers are in English.
>> 
>> I’ve also incorporated links to the individual items in the Standards: evolving algorithmic language <https://softwarepreservation.computerhistory.org/ALGOL/standards.html> section of my History of ALGOL  <https://softwarepreservation.computerhistory.org/ALGOL/>web site.
>> 
>> 
>> Paul McJones
>> paul at mcjones.org <mailto:paul at mcjones.org>
>> 
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