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From: darryl@ism780.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Re: Slow Fortran I/O (VMS format 'co - (nf)
Message-ID: <298@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Jul-84 00:02:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780.298
Posted: Mon Jul 23 00:02:43 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jul-84 02:19:19 EDT
Lines: 28

#R:abnjh:-72900:ism780:14700005:000:1163
ism780!darryl    Jul  9 06:36:00 1984

***** ism780:net.lang / abnjh!cbspt002 /  3:53 pm  Jul  8, 1984
>More to the point, try this for a shock:
>
>                    READ(5,100)!where unit 5 is tty I/O
>            100     FORMAT(50H                                      )
>                    WRITE(5,100)
>Not only does it still compile, but it still works just like it did from
>FORTRAN I. Can any language historians out there explain what it was for?

Sure.  Back in Fortran II, you probably wrote a stress analysis
program (didn't everyone? :-) or some such general purpose program,
and you wanted to put headers on the output listing:

	"STRESS ANALYSIS FOR SMITH JONES CO. PROJECT 37"

But, alas, there was no character input to get such a title, and
recompiling for each run was out of the question.  So you read
the title into a format statement and then used the same format
to write headings on each page.  Doesn't Fortran 77 finally
outlaw this crap?  I thought that Hollerith data was right out.
(Of course, your compiler may support this so that older programs
will port easily.)  Characters?  I don't need no stinkin' characters!

	    --Darryl Richman
	    ...!cca!ima!ism780!darryl