Dr. J. Halcombe "Hal" Laning, Jr. (February 14, 1920 in Kansas City, Missouri – May 29, 2012) was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer pioneer who in 1952 invented an algebraic compiler called George (also known as the Laning and Zierler system after the authors of the published paper) that ran on the MIT Whirlwind, the first real-time computer. Laning designed George to be an easier to use alternative to assembly language for entering mathematical equations into a computer. The concepts he introduced with George were later incorporated into FORTRAN. He later became a key contributor to the 1960s race to the moon, with pioneering work on space-based guidance systems for the Apollo moon missions. From 1955 to 1980, he was deputy associate director of the MIT Instrumentation Labo