James, I appreciate the information. When I was in HS in 1972 and 1973 I=20 took a course in BASIC and a course in FORTRAN. The BASIC course was=20 interesting and fun but it could also be frustrating. We used an=20 acoustical MODEM to connect to an IBM 360/60 at the University of Nevada=20 at Reno. We were in Las Vegas. We stored our programs on tape. Some of=20 the students discovered the Star Trek game and they used up all of the=20 CPU time that had been allocated for the class. They were expelled and=20 the school district was able to get a special dispensation so that we=20 could finish our studies. To say that no one else in the school ever=20 tried to play ST again was putting it mildly. The FORTRAN class was extremely frustrating in that we wrote our=20 program out and then transferred each line of code to the punch cards.=20 Am I remembering this correctly? Then we would mail the cards and the=20 program sheets to the UNR to be run. The cards and the program sheet was=20 mailed back to us to correct the errors. If a error shut the compiler=20 down the rest of the code would not be evaluated. The turn around time=20 was about 4 weeks. The class was 12 weeks long. You can see what would=20 happen. None of us were able to get a clean compile. Again I enjoyed=20 FORTRAN but I never did complete a program. I am glad that you brought up the part about thinking about it in=20 terms of using punch cards. Is that inherent to all versions of FORTRAN?=20 I always wondered why BASIC could be written on just about any type of=20 display and why FORTRAN required punch cards. Will keep that in mind. I didn't take up COBOL until the late 1980s. I went to private=20 college and I focused on learning COBOL. This was a lot of fun and very=20 interesting. Some of us noticed that some of the compiler printouts were=20 not reaching us or being late to reach us. One of the students noticed=20 this girl putting a printout into the bin that the compiler printouts=20 were supposed to be deposited in. When he checked it out he found that=20 it was not the girls. We started watching her and we discovered the she=20 was stealing our compiler printouts and then returning them when she=20 thought no one was watching. We took this to the instructor. The=20 instructor called her in in front of those of us who knew that she had=20 stolen our printouts. When each of us compared our code to her code it=20 was obvious that she was hi-jacking our code. She started screaming=20 about lawsuits and that we were doing this because she was Asian and=20 that she hadn't done anything wrong. You know the good old song and=20 dance when a crook is caught red-handed. I never used my COBOL training=20 but I continued to dabble in it. Thanks, rich! On 8/30/2016 12:42 AM, James Cameron wrote: > I've done Fortran. Then I did Ratfor, which was huge fun. A > supervisory system for a bulk grain terminal PLC system. > > If you want to try Fortran today, I'd suggest the GNU Fortran > compiler. It can target Windows 64, Windows 32, Linux, and many other > platforms. > > Don't expect it to be easy though. You have to think like you have a > stack of punch cards. ;-) > > On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 11:58:46PM -0500, Richard Pope wrote: >> Allen, >> I understand. Does anyone else have any recommendations? >> Thanks, >> rich! >> >> On 8/29/2016 11:56 PM, Allen Mulvey wrote: >>> Rich, >>> >>> To be honest, I haven't used Fortran since 1967. >>> >>> Allen >>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist- >>>> bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Pope >>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2016 12:46 AM >>>> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. >>>> Subject: Re: [PIC ] PIC Assembler >>>> >>>> Allen, >>>> What Fortran programming system would you >>>> recommend? One or two >>>> that are free. >>>> Thanks, >>>> rich! >>>> >>>> On 8/29/2016 10:46 PM, Allen Mulvey wrote: >>>>> Older than dirt? I used Fortran 4! What does that make >>> me? >>>>> Allen >>>>> >>>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>> From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist- >>>>>> bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of John J. McDonough >>>>>> Sent: Monday, August 29, 2016 5:36 PM >>>>>> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. >>>>>> Subject: Re: [PIC ] PIC Assembler >>>>>> >>>>>> C is often referred to as a write-only language since >>>> nobody >>>>>> can read >>>>>> it. In truth, it is kind of my favorite. >>>>>> >>>>>> By way of confession, after converting a program >>> written >>>> by >>>>>> a physicist >>>>>> in Cal into FORTRAN, I once promised myself that I >>> would >>>>>> never write in >>>>>> anything but the FORTRAN-60 dialect of FORTRAN >>>> because >>>>>> "all" computers >>>>>> understood that. So yeah, I'm older than dirt. >>>>>> >>>>>> --McD >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 14:16 -0700, John Gardner wrote: >>>>>>> ...pidgin... >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ...Local Argument #7 by Rap Replinger... >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Booga Booga! Those were da kine days... :) >>>>>> -- >>>>>> http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & >>> list >>>>>> archive >>>>>> View/change your membership options at >>>>>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist >>>> -- >>>> http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list >>>> archive >>>> View/change your membership options at >>>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist >> --=20 >> http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive >> View/change your membership options at >> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .