Summary form only given. The sequencing of the human genome would not have been possible without software - and, because of the specific nature of this effort, very little of it was previously available. We provide an overview of the programs developed for the human genome project, some of which have not been published before. The sequencing was officially completed in 2003, but its results (in combination with other obtained genomes) enabled the analysis on a grand scale. That mandated even more complex programming work. We conclude with an outline of several research directions which, in this author's opinion, become increasingly important.