I wrote an accounting system including a user-defined report writer in Fortran on a Data General mini-computer in the late '70s
You could do ANYTHING with Fortran!!! As for Algol, it was killed by the first 500 pound gorilla - IBM. Algol was the "machine language" for the Borroughs 5500/6500 series. There was NO "assembler" on those machines, they were designed to run Algol. The Fortran and Cobol compilers and the Time-share operating system I connected to over the phone line (with a "portable" 100 baud, 100 POUND teletype) back in 1969 were all written in Algol. But IBM, with the inferior hardware and VASTLY inferior software and infinitely better Service and ruthless Marketing Dept. won out... Alas... ------------------------------ The FIRST computer I worked on was a Univac NTDS prototype number 4. Machine language. Teletype/paper tape I/O. Fortran and Punched cards were a DREAM after that! HOLY CRAP!!! I just found out that the NTDS was Cray's FIRST COMPUTER!!! Wow. I'm a piece of history. Wait....that's not cool.....that makes me old... But I was Verrrrrrryyyyy young when I learned to program it after school... Navy Tactical Data System The use of transistors made it possible to build computers small enough for the U.S. Navy to consider using them on board ships to control radar and weapons systems. One of Cray's last designs at Sperry Rand before he left for Control Data in the summer of 1957 was a prototype shipboard computer for the Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS). Its naval designation was the AN/USQ-17, but Sperry Rand documents usually referred to it as the M-460. In the first version, the processor/memory unit was the shape and size of a bathtub, about four feet high, with a hinged lid which could be opened to give access to the circuitry inside. The computer had a word size of 30 bits which was believed to be the biggest size which could be reliably handled by the transistors of the time. Thirty bits allowed for five 6-bit alphanumeric characters per word. The processor had one 30-bit arithmetic (A) register, with a contiguous Q register to provide a total of 60 bits for the result of multiplication or the dividend in division. There were seven index (B) registers and 32,768 words of core memory. The instruction format marked the beginning of an instruction set which would be carried onward, with many changes along the way, into later UNIVAC computers including the 1100/2200 series which is still in use today. The parts of the instruction were referred to by letter codes, as follows: The jump condition designator (j) could cause the next instruction to be skipped depending on the value or sign of the A or Q register contents. In the second version of the M-460, the packaging was redesigned so that the unit stood upright, like an old-fashioned double-door refrigerator, six feet tall. Shortly after the departure of Cray, the Navy told Sperry Rand that it was impressed with the potential of the AN/USQ-17 and awarded the company a $50 million contract to build several service test systems for actual shipboard installation." http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/randy.carpenter/folklore/v3n4.html From another part of the article: "It turned out to be an extremely reliable machine; the first batch of 17 computers delivered to the Navy starting in early 1961, the mean time between failure was 2500 hours (104 days)!" No wonder every time I went over there to learn some more (after school) the Lt. had less hair and a more haggard look... Another neat feature was that the memory core had bit donuts that were big enough to see with the naked eye. You could literally see a bit. Can't do that now... Jerry Wolper wrote: >>> To be truthful I have always thought that the contribution of >>> Fortran was overstated, certainly as regards commercial >>> computing (input/output? - Do you mean the teletype?; >>> Permanent storage? - why would you need that - the >>> program types out the anwer at the end!) >>> >> The fact that it was the first non-Assembler-level language was >> pretty significant, IMO. >> > > IIRC (not having read the obit yet), Backus pretty much put together > Fortran as a hack. After it took off in all its inelegance, he wanted > to put together a proper high-level language and got the leading > computer scientists of the time to create a BNF spec for Algol. > Despite all this propriety, Algol never achieved the success that > Fortran did. > > -Jerry Wolper > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
