North_TJ@cc.curtin.edu.au (Tim North) (08/20/90)
Many thanks to the people who posted replies and follow-ups regarding my
query on dates for the various FORTRANs. Although much material of interest has
been posted I have come up with what I hope is a summary of the essential
details.
(For my class purposes I just needed a single overhead giving a brief history
of FORTRAN. This is what I've got.)
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The first FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator) compiler was released in 1957 by IBM.
This went through a number of upgrades culminating in IBM's FORTRAN IV circa
1962. By the mid-sixties, though, many other (non-IBM) implementations of
FORTRAN had also sprung up each with minor differences due the lack of a
detailed standard.
An ANSI standard for the language was released for the first time in 1966 and
FORTRAN 66 (as it came to be known) was quickly implemented for a wide range of
machines.
In the late seventies FORTRAN 66 was further extended and another official ANSI
standard approved called FORTRAN 77. Committees being what they are, this
languages was released in 1978...
FORTRAN 77, while still in use for scientific and engineering applications, is
increasingly being replaced by languages such as C and ADA.
Throughout the eighties a further extension of FORTRAN was expected. Delays
have seen this extension pushed back into the nineties, however. The next
ANSI standard, to be known as FORTRAN 90, will probably be released in 1991
or 1992.
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Cheers,
Tim North
SNAIL : Dept. Computer Engineering, Curtin University of Technology.
Perth, Western Australia.
Internet: North_TJ@cc.curtin.edu.au
ACSnet: North_TJ@cc.cut.oz.au
Bitnet: North_TJ%cc.curtin.edu.au@cunyvm.bitnet
UUCP : uunet!munnari.oz!cc.curtin.edu.au!North_TJbam@bnlux0.bnl.gov (Bruce A. Martin) (08/21/90)
In article <3168.26cfd410@cc.curtin.edu.au> North_TJ@cc.curtin.edu.au (Tim North) writes: >... Very nice summary, despite my small protest, below. Please forgive me 1 protest, 1 observation (for others), & 1 one correction. >... >In the late seventies FORTRAN 66 was further extended and another official ANSI >standard approved called FORTRAN 77. Committees being what they are, this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >languages was released in 1978... One small protest: this is not a discrepancy and really had nothing to do with "committees being ...". The difference between the language name and the ANSI approval date had nothing whatever to do with Technical Committee (X3J3) actions and little or nothing to do with X3 or ANSI processing. If anyone is really interested in the detailed chronology, the language was given the name "Fortran 77" in November 1976. The draft Proposed Standard was sent up (from X3J3 to X3) in May 1977. The ANSI approval date for Fortran 77 was in early 1978 (even tho it was submitted before Minimal BASIC, which got a -1977 date). The FIPS-69 date was also 1978, I think. think the CSA approval date was 1979. The ISO approval date was 1980. etc. -=o=- In any event, the one and only name of the language is "Fortran 77". (Or "FORTRAN 77", if you prefer to render the name that way.) The dates of publication, copyright, or approval by various standards bodies (ANSI, ISO, NBS/FIPS, CSA, BSO, DIN, etc., etc.) have nothing whatever to do with the name of the language. "Fortran 90" will be "Fortran 90", regardless of its ISO date (probably 1991), its ANSI date (maybe never), or the date of its approval by the Kuwaiti Standards Association. ;-) ["Fortran 88" and "Fortran 8x" were merely working names for the language which, when development was completed, was named "Fortran 90". "FORTREV" was the working name, last time around.] But there is no such language as "Fortran 78". Nor "Fortran 79". Nor "Fortran 80" (except for one vendor's compiler which was really a Fortran 66 subset plus a few extensions!) BTW, the marketing practice for new cars, new appliances, etc. is quite the opposite: the 1992 model, announced last week, was probably designed in 1987. In textbook publishing, it is common to put next year's date in the copyright notice (and the year-after-next's in the title, if you can get away with it). I think the standards groups' more honest practice of using the year of completion is to be encouraged not ridiculed. >Throughout the eighties a further extension of FORTRAN was expected. Delays >have seen this extension pushed back into the nineties, however. The next >ANSI standard, to be known as FORTRAN 90, will probably be released in 1991 >or 1992. ^^^^^^ In 1977, there were still many computers, tapes, printers, etc. which had only one alphabetic case (usually associated with UPPER case graphics). Therefore, the all-caps rener- ing of the language name as FORTRAN was continued in the standard, and in most practice. The languages described by X3.9-1966 and X3.9-1978 are written as "FORTRAN 66" and "FORTRAN 77". During the next decade, however, technology and taste gravitated toward mixed-case capability and practice. [That's a zeugma, BTW.] Believing that such capability was available virtually everywhere, X3J3 and WG5 decided to use upper case for only the initial letter, so that the new language should be spelled as "Fortran 90", not "FORTRAN 90". My personal view is that it is perfectly proper to render the name of the (soon to be) obsolescent language as "Fortran 77" (provided you have equipment capable of doing so). Of course I do not claim any official standards approval for this view. >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Cheers, >Tim North Cheers, (and we'll put another lobster on the BBQ!) BAM