Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On Sat, 28 Sep 2024 07:07:40 -0400, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:

I got my start in high school with BASIC, keyed into a teletype and
saved to paper tape.  (Later, I learned how to toggle code into the
front panel of the PDP-8.)

I had a couple of brushes with BASIC. The IBM 5120 offered a choice of
BASIC or APL so that was a no-brainer. Later I did a follow-up with an
environmental test system. I had originally done the software for the AT
which was the master controller of a number of slaved XTs. (Sorry DEI).
The XTs had been programmed in BASIC by someone else. About 8 months after
I left I cog a phone call asking if I could return to sort the XTs out so
it was back to Ft. Wayne.

I also wrote a preprocessor to convert BASIC to sort of  an IL and the
necessary run time but I was working in assembler rather than BASIC.
Interpreted BASIC wasn't exactly speedy. Not being a 'computer scientist'
I was fairly naive at the time and was working from a directive 'speed
this stuff up'.