[comp.arch] Message from God

eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (01/13/90)

I forgot which newsgroup asked this.

From: John Backus <backus@almvma>
To: Eugene Miya <eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: another fortran history question
In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 15 Dec 89 14:52:35 PST,
             <8912152252.AA10825@eos.arc.nasa.gov>

Eugene,
We made one or more blanks equivalent to one blank because we felt
this would allow a user to arrange his program more meaningfully;
also, we felt that it was often hard for keypunchers to tell whether
there was one or two blanks in some circumstances. Hope this clears
up this vital question! (And I hope I'm remembering correctly!)
--John