19 Mar
2017
19 Mar
'17
2:14 p.m.
On 2017-03-17 2:56 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 03/17/2017 11:41 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
I came across a typical example of how Fortran was used as lingua
franca, just yesterday, in a book titled "Knapsack Problems - Algorithms
and Computer Implementations" (Silvano Martello, Paolo Toth), published
1990.
The Preface includes the words:
"The Fortran codes implementing the most effective methods are
provided in the included diskette. The codes are portable on virtually
any computer, extensively commented and---hopefully---easy to use."
--Toby
Not quite true. ALGOL was the first choice for a
couple of
architectures: Electrologica X8, and the Burroughs 48-bit mainframes.
And I supposed you could claim that status for Bliss in the case of
VAXen, though in a different sense there was a whole set of high
level languages that were there day 1 because the architecture
envisioned all of them (and any combination of them).
Well, okay--the European-American divide must be taken into account--and
the Burroughs B5000 architecture was sui generis.
But by and large, FORTRAN, at least in North America, was the first
language of choice in implementation--after assembly, if one can call
assembly a language--many would call it "symbolic coding"; using symbols
instead of numeric addresses.
--Chuck