More computer nostalgia

[altivo]

It was gloomy and rainy all day, so I had at least half an excuse for playing with the computer. I fiddled about with the MVS emulation, playing with the language compilers and especially the two Fortran versions (G and H, which date to the late 60s or early 70s.) It seemed odd that they were so inflexible in some respects until I thought about how long ago that really was.

I have a fair amount of source code for my own programs in ham radio and a little astronomy, but most of it was written in RATFOR. I had RATFOR on the TRS80 model 4, and later on MSDOS. I decided these vintage FORTRANs needed a dose of RATFOR, so I set out to get a working RATFOR preprocessor onto the MVS system. It was a bigger task than I expected. Getting the source code (which is in FORTRAN of course) from UNIX over to MVS was simple enough, but getting it to compile was an odyssey. I did eventually get it to compile and link, and it runs, but seems to produce no usable output. It should read a RATFOR program, produce a printed listing of the source code, and output pure FORTRAN IV code to the punch or some other unit. It's reading the source and printing it all right, and gives no error indication. The return code is zero, but I get no FORTRAN output. It remains a puzzle.

Anyway, discussing this over lunch resulted ultimately in a trip to the barn where we dug through some very dusty boxes. Sure enough, my string-saving mate came up with a complete set of OS/360 manuals for the two FORTRAN compilers, both G and H. He had everything from the installation guides to the language references and error messages. It's nearly a foot of shelf space. Musty and dusty, but invaluable, and no longer available from IBM. He thought he had original documentation on RATFOR too, but we didn't find that. Still, this is a veritable treasure trove. There are lots of books available on FORTRAN IV as it existed in that time period, but each compiler vendor had their own limitations and extensions. Figuring out the meaning of a message such as "ROLL SIZE EXCEEDED" can be quite a puzzle without the proper documentation.

We're missing a cat. Not the one who goes out to patrol the barns and pastures all the time, but one of the two elderly house cats. The absentee is generally very shy of strangers, and was last seen on Wednesday morning. That afternoon Gary had a group of people over to rehearse, and the cat hasn't been seen since. He ran and hid somewhere, certainly, but it doesn't seem to be inside the house. He may have gone out the dog door, as he does occasionally, but he should have come back by now. I suspect something happened to him this time. One of his sisters, who was even more skittish and afraid than he, hid in one of the barns years ago and was so afraid to come out that apparently she starved to death or died of dehydration up on a high shelf. We eventually found her, but it was much too late to do anything about it.

Oh and while I was fiddling with FORTRAN, Gary was baking. He made Kaiser rolls (well, something like, anyway.) And he made some kind of rhubarb pie that I hope to get a sample of shortly. Then it's bedtime for sure.

Comments

[fandt4.livejournal.com]

Lol, Fortran.

I've heard plenty of stories from my father about Fortran from his younger days. Days spent in school, even.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Fortran is still widely used, actually. It is probably the best adapted language for scientific and engineering work, and is well-known and easy to learn. The modern versions of the language are more relevant to the microcomputer environment and can call all the usual system and library functions to control screen displays and whatnot, but the primary strength of the language lies in fast and efficient coding for the kind of modeling needed in, say, atomic physics or astronomy. It also excels at statistical analysis and graphic processing. Thirty years ago Fortran was still used as the introductory language when teaching programming, but I think that place has probably been lost to Basic, Pascal, and C.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I think it's only Pascal and C now, well at least here Basic is no longer part of the IT curriculum I think.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

At the high school and college level, I think the same is true here. Unfortunately, when younger students are introduced to computers, Basic is often still part of the exposure.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear that your cat has gone AWOL and it was a sad story about the other cat. Our cat doesn't like large groups so she usually goes somewhere where she can "observe" or "overhear" but not be hassled.