Anyone want to buy a supercomputer?

[Mark E. Mallett]

On Wed, May 01, 2024 at 07:52:37PM -0400, jon.maddog.hall at gmail.com wrote:
  ...

> So BASIC has a lot of detractors, mostly due to the infamous "GOTO".

FORTRAN's "computed goto" put that to shame ;)


> So here is to you, BASIC!   You moved a lot of people forward.

Indeed.

-mm-  (no thanks on the supercomputer)


PS: Some time in the mid-70s I wrote a FORTRAN preprocessor that
allowed the use of symbolic labels. It could also renumber labels,
move format statements to their own section with their own number
grouping. A la ratfor I guess, tho I had never heard of that (it
sort of barely existed then anyway).

PPS: I only ever took one language course in my ignoble time at college,
prior to the thing in the PS above.  It was FORTRAN. I took it three
times because I failed it twice, me being a horrible student and
distracted by.. well, computers.  The third time I got a D. The final
term project was returned with a red scrawl over the front page saying
"I asked for a project, not a thesis." That was sort of on my mind
because I think I had that printout up until about a week ago when it
was accidentally thrown out by somebody working on the house here.

Ah, nostalgia. I remember that.