Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!cccm001
From: cccm001@ut-emx.UUCP (Tom Linsley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Calling FORTRAN from C (Was: Need matrix inversion C routine).
Summary: Incompatibilities among CDC Fortran compilers
Message-ID: <12661@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 89 18:31:13 GMT
References: <2846@tank.uchicago.edu> <5785@cbnews.ATT.COM> <10087@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1274@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 33

In article <1274@l.cc.purdue.edu>, cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
> 
> This can even be a problem with ONE language.  Programs in Fortran
> compiled with one calling sequence on the CDC 6x00 could not call programs
> written in the other with arguments, and so there was a problem with the use
> of library routines.  Neither was ever implemented, and the machines have
> been phased out.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this last sentence.  The mutual
incompatibility between the RUN and FTN calling conventions was
certainly an annoyance, but was hardly insurmountable if one were willing
to have two (or more) sets of libraries.  These were not the only
incompatibilities among compilers for this equipment, differences in I/O
support routines prevented mixing object modules of some Fortran
compilers using the same linkage mechanism.

The successor to the 6000 series was the 170 series, same architecture
but implemented in integrated circuits rather than discrete components;  the
later versions suffered the same limitations as Cray's original, i.e., small
central memory inalterably fixed by 18-bit address registers, and oddball
(60-bit) word size.  These imperfections were sufficient to cause the modern
world to lose interest in what was, for its time, a most admirable design.

We still have a dual 170/750 system chugging away, doing considerable work
for Fortran folks, many of whom, I'm sure, are kicking and cursing.  The
system has on the order of ten Fortran compilers, although only five are
available directly at the control command level.

Regards,

Tom Linsley, Senior Systems Analyst, friend to Saurians
Computation Center, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712
cccm001@emx.utexas.edu