In January, Peter Capek told me that while cleaning up a file cabinet in his home he’d come across:
… a detailed description of the FORTRAN compiler, dated in 1960, and explicitly distinguishing between the 704 and 709 versions, but covering both. It looks like it was typed and what I have is probably not an original, but likely one of very few copies. It’s a couple of hundred pages, and describes each section of the compiler, including table structure, in considerable detail.
Peter very kindly made me a photocopy of this 264-page document, which is a wonderful complement to the actual source code. I hope soon to be able to provide web access to this and the other Fortran documents I’ve come across.
Peter is a frequent contributor to alt.folklore.computers and supplied information for Frank da Cruz’s “The Columbia University Computer Center in 1965” article.
Update 2024/05/08: Update URL for alt.folklore.computers and https for Frank’s article.
I would like a copy of the Systems Manual for 704 Fortran and 709 Fortran
You can either E-mail it or send it by regular mail to:
Henry Katz
8250 Brattle Road
Pikesville, MD 21208-2121
U.S.A.
Henry,
The manual is 264 pages long, so it would be pretty bulky to copy and send to you. But luckily I have scanned it and made it available as a PDF file which you can download and print for yourself. Its URL is:
http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/FORTRAN_Systems_Manual-1960.pdf
You can also find it by going to the new FORTRAN web site at the Computer History Museum (http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/) and scrolling down to the Documentation section, which is organized in rough chronological order.
Paul