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From: North_TJ@cc.curtin.edu.au (Tim North)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: FORTRAN Dates [SUMMARY]
Message-ID: <3168.26cfd410@cc.curtin.edu.au>
Date: 20 Aug 90 04:14:07 GMT
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Lines: 43

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.
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