Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On 3/10/25 5:13 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Mon, 10 Mar 2025 08:51:43 -0700, Don_from_AZ wrote:
 

The Wright brothers and others were trying to fly like the birds could,
right? It doesn't seem surprising to me that they would hit upon wing
warping before thinking of ailerons.

 And then they tried to patent the whole idea of controlled flight. So when
Curtiss came up with articulated control surfaces that didn’t work by wing
warping, they insisted that this was still covered by their patent.

   Hey, $$$ often outranks Truth !  :-)

The resulting legal wrangle practically shut down the US aviation
industry, allowing the Europeans to get an early lead. Until FDR leaned on
the Wrights to loosen up a bit.

   There was a similar death-match between Tesla
   and Marconi.
   FINALLY resolved, conveniently AFTER Tesla was
   dead ... it was determined that Tesla HAD invented
   the basic tech. But he had no heirs - so Marconi
   didn't have to pay up  :-)