Re: Declaration to get 8-bit (or 16-bit) integer?

Richard Maine wrote:

glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(snip regarding the original intent of Fortran)

As original as it gets, for the 704 they did sign magnitude
16 bit integer arithmetic in 36 bit words. Characters were
six bits each. Bytes and 8 bit character sets hadn't been
invented yet. The card reader read cards a row at a time
into two 36 bit words, such that only 72 columns were read.

That is as close to original intent as I could come up with.

That, however, sounds like a particular implementation - not "the
Fortran language". Those are two completely different subjects. You see
any hint of evidence that the intent of "the Fortran language" was to be
designed around that machine (or any other particular machine)? I don't.
I see rather strong evidence to the contrary.

Not having been born at the time, I don't have any direct evidence.
From reading computer history books, though, most systems at that
time were designed for what they had on hand, with very little planning
for future machines. Much of Fortran was designed around the 704.

As someone else mentioned, the arithmetic IF.

Five digit statement numbers, originally 1 to 32767, extended later.

The 72 columns, two words on the 704 which read cards one row at a time.

DO loops that couldn't start at zero, only allowed positive increments,
and didn't guarantee not to execute if the final value was lower than the initial value.

A maximum of three subscripts on arrays, with restrictions on the allowed expressions for subscripts.

I/O statements specific to the devices (READ INPUT TAPE, WRITE DRUM).

Sense light set/test.

Restrictions on Assigned GOTO in DO loops.

Carriage control characters specific to certain IBM printers.
(The carriage control '1' is a special case of 'skip to channel'
which allows 1 through 9.

On the other hand, there are many features which were new at the
time, and extended well to newer machines.

One 'obvious' feature that it seems Fortran was the first to
use is variable names of more than one character, going
against the mathematical tradition.

-- glen

.

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