Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!gatech!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert
From: hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Explain 8x completely!
Message-ID: <50500023@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 88 00:01:00 GMT
References: <1529@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Lines: 17
Nf-ID: #R:cartan.Berkeley.EDU:1529:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:50500023:000:960
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert    Feb  3 18:01:00 1988


It has been suggested that we "explain Fortran 8x completely" in this forum.
X3J3 produced a "short" description of 8x (published by SIGNUM and SIGPLAN)
in 1984.  It was 42 pages long.  Condensing that information enough to fit
in a news article is just not reasonable.

I imagine that that report is still available from ACM (SIGNUM Newsletter
volume 19 number 3 or FORTEC Forum volume 3 number 2), although there have
been some significant changes in the last 4 years.  If you don't want to
spend the $50 for the proposed standard, may I suggest spending $20 for
Fortran 8x Explained by Metcalf & Reid (Oxford University Press).  The authors
are both members of X3J3 and they delayed publication until the proposed
draft was frozen in order to avoid being wrong about last minute changes, so
I think you would find this an accurate description of what is in the proposed
standard.

Kurt W. Hirchert           National Center for Supercomputing Applications