IFIP WG 2.1 was formed as the body responsible for the continued support and maintenance of the programming language ALGOL 60.
As of 2 March 2011[update], its scope is:[2] Soon after the publication of the original ALGOL 60 Report in 1960, issues arose that needed some form of authoritative resolution.
During that meeting, the authors decided to institutionalize the responsibility for the continued support and maintenance of ALGOL 60 by transferring it to the young international IFIP organization.
The initial membership consisted largely of most of the original authors, with the addition of several members responsible for ALGOL 60 implementations.
When ALGOL 60 was designed, its intended scope of use was similar to that of FORTRAN: largely the field of numerical analysis or computing.