A pioneer in the fledgling software industry of the 1950s, Roy Nutt was a major contributor in the creation of IBM's FORTRAN, the first high-level scientific and engineering programming language.
Part of the FORTRAN project's team, he was responsible for developing the computer command FORMAT, which controls data for input and output.
During this period, Roy Nutt met Fletcher Jones when he joined with nineteen others from the aerospace industry to form the influential IBM user group known as SHARE which developed SOS, one of the first operating systems.
Roy Nutt had become a widely respected computer programmer for United Aircraft Corp. in East Hartford, Connecticut, where he developed the Symbolic Assembly Program for the IBM 704.
Nutt was responsible for building Honeywell the first commercial compiler (FACT) and oversaw the company's major 1961 entry into the space industry when they obtained a contract to support the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Flight Operations Facility.