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From: ams@philabs.Philips.Com (M. Ali Shaik)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Why Does MS Fortran Compiler Need So Many %*&^%!! Floppies?
Message-ID: <1471@briar.Philips.Com>
Date: Wed, 29-Jul-87 16:24:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: briar.1471
Posted: Wed Jul 29 16:24:50 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Aug-87 07:52:42 EDT
Reply-To: ams@philabs.Philips.Com (M. Ali Shaik)
Distribution: world
Organization: Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Lines: 14

Could someone please explain, in English, why the MS Fortran compiler
needs about 5 floppies? I just 'installed' one on a IBM PC (the installation
process itself is a bitch, switching floppies in&out of disk drives. MS
advises users to make backup copies of the distribution disks, all six
of them, and 'installing' requires yet another 5 floppies to produce the
working compiler. Total = 11 floppies!). To compile a three line Fortran
program I had to switch three compiler floppies in & out of the drive!

As a non- computer scientist, I think about why the Turbo-Pascal compiler
sits on a fraction of one floppy- one would imagine Pascal needs more
space due to all the fancy data structures, and other features like recursion,
etc.

Ali Shaik   ihnp4!philabs!ams