On Thu, 13 Jul 2017 17:46:04 -0600 "Nelson H. F. Beebe" <[email protected]> wrote:
> There is an interesting new journal article published today about the > attempt to recover and reconstruct the first Fortran compiler. Simh, > and some of the members of the SIMH list, get mention in the article. As a young FE right out of college, I went to IBM Poughkeepsie in 1992 for IBM 7090 training and subsequently joined the Data Systems Division Lab at Poughkeepsie in 1963. At the time, I was developing advanced diagnostics for the "new" IBM 7040 and the "older" IBM 7090. Early on, I took an internal FORTRAN compiler design course - and was given a copy of the original internal FORTRAN design document - which contained detailed (mostly hand drawn) flowcharts and (IIRC) listings. It was 8.5" x 11" and very thick. One of its authors was John Backus. I recognized that it was "special" and never discarded it. About five years ago when looking through my collection for some IBM 7090 Training Manuals (and found them), I also searched for the FORTRAN design document - but it was not where I expected it to be. I subsequently searched what was, to the best of my knowledge, all my archives from that period - but unfortunately did not find it. It's quite possible that it got misplaced and is in one of the many boxes of vintage archives I've collected over the years. If I ever "stumble" across it, I'll let you all know - and lend it to Al Kossow at the CHM so he can scan it and make it available to the world on bitsavers. Cheers, Lyle -- 73 AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" _______________________________________________ Simh mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
