h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I learned Fortran around 1970 in college. Yes, we had punched cards, but we were allowed to operate the (old) computer ourselves, an IBM something with four digits (1620?). This proved why operators were a good idea for those machines. The night before an assignment was due, everybody was lined up in the room with the machine, so the room got warm. The machine was wired through the thermostat to protect it from overheating, so it shut down. The user/operators simply applied ice to the thermostat and voila, back in business ... for a while anyway.

I also first pogrammed on IBM 1130 (I think) and 1800's.
It is not quite true that machines of that era could only RUN one program at a time. But it is true that they could only COMPILE one program, input via the card reader, at a time. So, yes, users had to wait for access to the one and only card reader. Then you had to correct any stupid little typos and re-submit the job - from the back of the queue usually.

The term interpreter is intruduced without explanation. Was BASIC the first interpretive language?

Awu