Help reading a 9 track tape

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 8/2/21 4:47 PM, Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk wrote:
> 
>>> Depending on what he was trying to do that may well be a valid
>> assessment.  CDC Fortran was known to be pretty good, but Fortran  is not
>> the obvious answer for implementing interpreters or other language
>> processors, which this sounds like.
>>>
>>
>> Some might argue with you about that.  PL/M was done in Fortran IV.
>>
> 
> I will argue with that. If you wanted code that was pretty portable you used FORTRAN (or COBOL if you had masochistic tendencies).
> You were almost certain to be able to find a FORTRAN compiler for most any machine.
> "We" wrote X.25 networking software in FORTRAN 77 because every machine sold to a UK university had to have FORTRAN 77.
> Salford University even wrote a FORTRAN 77 compiler!. In the UK University machines had to come with 10 years of hardware and software support.
> Salford originally had an ICL1900 which ICL actually replaced with a 2900  because it  was so old and they ran out of spares but they would not upgrade the software so we/they were stuck with FORTRAN 66 under DME (1900 emulation)
> As there was no money for upgrades from ICL but there was research money Salford wrote a FORTRAN77 compiler for ICL 1900.
> It was intended to be a stop-gap, to be discarded when the ICL was replaced with PR1ME. However the PR1ME was benchmarked with Fortran 66.
> When Pr1me Fortran 77 was delivered its performance was "pants" so the "stop gap" ICL compiler was ported to PR1ME...
> .. later it was ported to MSDOS... More info here
> 
> https://www.silverfrost.com/53/ftn77_personal_edition.aspx
> 
> 
>> bill
> 
> Dave
> 


Smart Prime sites had that Salford Compiler you were talking about.  :-)

bill