[Simh] Simh and historical Fortran in the news

[Richard Cornwell]

Hi,

> 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.  

  What I would love to find is a copy (either listing or tape) of FMS
  for the 709.

Rich


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Richard Cornwell
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