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Old 17th April 2018 | 23:35
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India Four Two
 
Joined: Jun 2002
: PPL
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The IBM 1401 compiles and runs FORTRAN II

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!

A lovely video from the Computer History Museum, compiling and running a FORTRAN program on a 1401, which was a business machine, not a scientific computer.



My first exposure to IBM machines was running FORTRAN IV programs on the later System 360, which was a scientific machine.

For you youngsters out there, I should point out that users were not allowed in the hallowed space of the machine room. I punched my cards, submitted them and sometime later, would get some printout, possibly with a pithy, scribbled comment from the operator.

The compiler would stop at the first syntax error, which I would correct and then resubmit. Getting a job to compile correctly, could take several days. Then I could start debugging!

Debugging often involved the joys of poring over multiple pages of hexadecimal core dump. I learned early on, after dropping a card deck, of the wisdom of turning on the option of using the last four characters on the 80 column card, to punch a sequential line number!
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