From: Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com>
To: Computer Old Farts Followers <coff@tuhs.org>
Subject: [COFF] Re: Of PL/I
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2024 21:13:21 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CABH=_VTOmhgfiZW-RcQJ_BTCPA7x+cYuphXhyVnzx25eOLQ4BQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.2404080905220.31370@aneurin.horsfall.org>
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On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 7:10 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Apr 2024, Charles H Sauer (he/him) wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > I wrote a Fortran to PL/I crude translator in SNOBOL [...]
>
> Gadzooks... For our "write a simple compiler" assignment I threatened to
> use SNOBOL, but my lecturer (Ken Robinson) threatened to fail me :-)
>
> Translating Fortran to PL/I is pretty straightforward. It translates
pretty much 1-for-1 except for handling character data. One could replace
Fortran's Hollerith-encoded character strings with an integer array on
which a PL/I character string has been overlay defined. Back in 1977 I
translated the TOPS-10 version of the Adventure game, which was in Fortran,
into PL/I so that I could run it on our batch S/370 mainframe. I used an
IBM 3277 transaction terminal as the interactive interface. I very
carefully translated the TOPS-10 Fortran into IBM PL/I line by line, except
for the character data where I bit the bullet and used pure PL/I character
variables. The whole thing ran the very first time and had only one
obscure bug: instead of saying PLOVER ROOM as one did in the TOPS-10
version, you had to say PLOVERROOM. Once that bug was fixed the PL/I
version worked like a charm until we got our VAX, where I did another port
of the TOPS-10 program so that it ran under VAX/VMS. This time it stayed
in Fortran, but again there was funny business with character strings
because of the 36 vs. 32 bit word size.
If I were to write an automated, general Fortran-to-PL/I translator, SNOBOL
would be my language of choice.
-Paul W.
-Paul W.
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-04-08 1:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 17+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2024-04-02 15:06 [COFF] " Dave Horsfall
2024-04-02 16:40 ` [COFF] " Clem Cole
2024-04-02 17:01 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2024-04-03 16:18 ` Paul Winalski
2024-04-03 17:30 ` segaloco via COFF
2024-04-03 20:44 ` Paul Winalski
2024-04-04 3:37 ` Wesley Parish
2024-04-04 15:40 ` Paul Winalski
2024-04-04 22:53 ` Peter Pentchev
2024-04-07 23:10 ` Dave Horsfall
2024-04-07 23:25 ` Charles H Sauer (he/him)
2024-04-09 21:41 ` Stuff Received
2024-04-10 0:50 ` [COFF] SNOBOL, ICEBOL, SPITBOL, et al William H. Mitchell
2024-04-10 1:42 ` [COFF] " Dave Horsfall
2024-04-08 1:13 ` Paul Winalski [this message]
2024-04-02 19:25 ` [COFF] Re: Of PL/I Stuff Received
2024-04-02 20:31 ` William H. Mitchell
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