Autoflow

Autoflow was an application program from Applied Data Research (ADR) for mainframe computers that reads assembly language programs and produces a flowchart of that code. It is historically notable as one of the first software applications to be offered for sale independent of the system it ran on, as well as the first to receive a software patent in the United States, and to be licensed to customers rather than sold.

Autoflow was introduced in 1964 for the RCA 501. Originally intending to have RCA purchase it and give it to their customers, RCA thought its $25,000 price was too high and declined to buy it. ADR then approached 501 owners directly, becoming what is generally accepted to be the first commercial software vendor. The RCA market was small, so ADR ported it to the IBM 1401 and began sales into that much larger market in 1965.

These early versions required the user to indicate the symbol for each chart entry using a numeric code entered as a comment in the code. This was fine for new programs being written, but users had no interest in modifying their existing programs to use it. ADR modified Autoflow to decode the type directly from the instruction codes, allowing it to produce a flowchart by reading the original unmodified program. This version was also ported to the hugely successful System/360, where it saw its most use.

IBM introduced their own program, Flowcharter, but it was a much simpler system where the entire chart had to be specified by hand. Despite the clear advantages of Autoflow, customers felt that IBM would add Autoflow-like features to their program, and give it away for free like other programs in the IBM collection. To stop this from happening, ADR filed for a patent on the concept, which was issued in 1968. By 1970 the company had several thousand customers and by the end of the decade it was one of the top five software companies in the world.