[Simh] Simh and historical Fortran in the news

[Lyle Bickley]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2017 17:46:04 -0600
"Nelson H. F. Beebe" <beebe at math.utah.edu> wrote:

> There is an interesting new journal article published today about the
> attempt to recover and reconstruct the first Fortran compiler.  Simh,
> and some of the members of the SIMH list, get mention in the article.

As a young FE right out of college, I went to IBM Poughkeepsie in 1992
for IBM 7090 training and subsequently joined the Data Systems Division
Lab at Poughkeepsie in 1963. At the time, I was developing advanced
diagnostics for the "new" IBM 7040 and the "older" IBM 7090.

Early on, I took an internal FORTRAN compiler design course - and was
given a copy of the original internal FORTRAN design document - which
contained detailed (mostly hand drawn) flowcharts and (IIRC) listings.
It was 8.5" x 11" and very thick. One of its authors was John Backus.

I recognized that it was "special" and never discarded it. About five
years ago when looking through my collection for some IBM 7090 Training
Manuals (and found them), I also searched for the FORTRAN design
document - but it was not where I expected it to be. I subsequently
searched what was, to the best of my knowledge, all my archives from
that period - but unfortunately did not find it.

It's quite possible that it got misplaced and is in one of the many
boxes of vintage archives I've collected over the years. If I ever
"stumble" across it, I'll let you all know - and lend it to Al Kossow
at the CHM so he can scan it and make it available to the world on
bitsavers.  

Cheers,
Lyle
-- 
73      AF6WS
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"