• Re: history of Fortran, good post on LinkedIn

    From albert@albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl to sci.electronics.design,comp.arch.embedded on Sun Feb 1 22:11:29 2026
    From Newsgroup: comp.arch.embedded

    In article <10lm24t$iqv$1@gal.iecc.com>, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote: >According to Niocl|is P||l Caile|in de Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com>:
    I want to quote an old comp.compilers post by its moderator about how >>FORTRAN programmers are not bothered to consult the FORTRAN standard
    (circa FORTRAN-66) so they insist that they know FORTRAN when they do
    not, so a new FORTRAN standard (circa FORTRAN-77) made a >>backwards-incompatible change to accept this wrong belief of what
    FORTRAN really is. Alas searching for it takes too long (the 3 search >>options offered by

    I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. Possibly someone else did but I don't >recall that either. In fact F77 tried hard to stay compatible with F66 and >the few incompatibilities were well documented and had good rationales.

    In 1990 I led a project with Shell. All calculations were still required to
    use FORTRAN IV. Because there was substantial graphics involved we got dispensation to use c on VMS. (Using transputers, also occam was allowed.) Compatibility was a priority.

    John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",

    Groetjes Albert
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