Author: David Dory
Date: 18:43:21 02/05/04
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On February 05, 2004 at 21:01:52, Christophe Theron wrote: >On February 05, 2004 at 14:57:32, Bob Durrett wrote: > >> >>Quote from an MSNBC article: >> >>Forty-seven years after IBM unleashed it, Fortran (formula translation), the >>original “high-level” programming language, would seem to be the infotech >>equivalent of cuneiform. But it’s still widely used, especially in scientific >>computing. Why has this Eisenhower-era veteran outlasted so many hardware and >>software generations? “It’s partly the learning curve,” says Hewlett-Packard >>Laboratories’ Hans Boehm, former chair of the Association for Computing >>Research’s special-interest group on programming languages. “For some people >>it’s good enough, and it’s hard to let go of something once you learn it.” >>Adaptability and compatibility, which made Fortran the programmers’ lingua >>franca in the 1960s and ’70s, are also key to its viability. Major upgrades have >>boosted efficiency and added features while preserving old versions intact. So a >>vast number of tried-and-true Fortran 77 programs jibe with the current Fortran >>90. Microsoft, take note. >> >>Maybe chess programmers are missing out on the best language of all! >> >>Bob D. > > > >"Chess", the mythical chess program of the '70 programmed by Slate and Atkins, >was programmed in Fortran. > >I think it was a bitboard program. > >Bob will tell me if the above is incorrect (most probably it is incomplete). > > > > Christophe CHESS 3.6 was a mixture of FORTRAN (mostly i/o I believe), and CDC 6000 assembly language. CHESS 4.0 was assembly. They (Slate and Atkins) felt FORTRAN (and other languages), did not have the power and complete control they needed. David
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