# Niklaus Wirth publishes the programming language Pascal

Date: 1970

## The fact

In 1970 Niklaus Wirth issued the language [Pascal](/people/blaise-pascal), named for the calculator’s inventor, as a teaching and structured-programming tool. Blaise Pascal did not write a compiler.

## Context

A namesake language is reception plus pedagogy. It increased copyable computing education. It is not a 1642 gear train.

Blaise Pascal is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Official or museum/library pages and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Wirth, The Programming Language Pascal — ACM (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/367236.367262; Association for Computing Machinery).

## Significance

A teaching language named for him is a late education path. High confidence on 1970 publication.

A teaching language named for him is a late education path. High confidence on 1970 publication.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is edu-[digital-learning-access](/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here. Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Blaise Pascal: https://factrail.ai/people/blaise-pascal

## Drivers

- Digital Learning Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access

## Sources

- https://history.computer.org/pioneers/wirth.html
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/367236.367262

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/pa-wirth-pascal-1970