 In the late 1950s, computer users and manufacturers were becoming concerned about the rising cost of programming. A 1959 survey had found that in any data processing installation, the programming cost US $ 800,000 on average and that translating programs to run on new hardware would cost $ 600,000. At a time when new programming languages were proliferating at an ever increasing rate, the same survey suggested that if a common business-oriented language were used, conversion would be far cheaper and faster.
