[COFF] How much Fortran?

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[krewat]

So, given the membership here, I wonder, does anyone have the inside 
scoop? How much Fortran was used ?

https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/01/31/1837209/nasa-is-trying-to-save-voyager-2-after-a-power-glitch-shut-down-its-instruments

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[lm]

When I was in school the calling convention had been sorted, just barely.
You could call libc stuff from fortran but it didn't really work, the 
types didn't match up.  But if you stuck to the basics, you could make
it work.

My Dad was a physics prof, theory guy, I coded some Fortran for him.
It was definitely _the_ language for the physics guys.  I'm close 
friends with Bill Long at Cray, he's been on the Fortran steering
committee for decades.

It is still a thing.  Big in the physics world and it has evolved.
It's much better than it was.

How big was it 30 years ago?  In my opinion, tiny compared to C.

On Sun, Feb 02, 2020 at 08:38:43PM -0500, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> So, given the membership here, I wonder, does anyone have the inside scoop?
> How much Fortran was used ?
> 
> https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/01/31/1837209/nasa-is-trying-to-save-voyager-2-after-a-power-glitch-shut-down-its-instruments
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[drb]

 > So, given the membership here, I wonder, does anyone have the inside
 > scoop? How much Fortran was used ?

Toward the bottom of the "Development and Management" section, there's a
paragraph about programming languages.  Hard to call it deeply
authoritative, but...

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/voyager-mission-anniversary-computers-command-data-attitude-control/

De

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[clemc]

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On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 10:47 PM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> How big was it 30 years ago?  In my opinion, tiny compared to C.
>
Be careful, Fortran use is still not tiny (it has always paid my salary,
and continues to do so).  If you want to see some of the detail check out a
fascinating web site:   http://www.archer.ac.uk/status/codes/  then scroll
the red bar and button, by programming language and take a look at the
graphics, then scroll down and look at the applications.  [Archer is a big
Top-500 style supercomputer in the UK.  They are one of my customers, so
I'm aware of their work].

The sad truth is not a lot of 'new code' gets written for HPC (what I call
the 'Fortran problem' - a discussion I have had with a number of the DPC++
folks here at Intel).   Solutions like University of Illinois HPVM
(Heterogeneous
Parallel Systems Compiler), DPC++, and Cuda for that matter, all assume new
code is being written (which is great for minting new Ph’Ds), but history
has shown over and over, that does not happen in the HPC space [See: Clem
Cole's Quora answer: Why is the Fortran language still in use and the most
Importantly Relevant in HPC?  Is it just because this Language has
Tremendous Numerical Calculation Capability Which is an Important Part of
HPC?
<https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Fortran-language-still-in-use-and-most-importantly-relevant-in-HPC-Is-it-just-because-this-language-has-tremendous-numerical-calculation-capability-which-is-an-important-part-of-HPC/answer/Clem-Cole>
 and Clem Cole's Quora answer to: What is Fortran Useful For?
<https://www.quora.com/What-is-Fortran-useful-for/answer/Clem-Cole>].

So back to the question.  Given the timeframe when Voyager was being
developed, the primary development languages were Assembler, and
Fortran-66/IV in the NASA community (with some Jovial, most from the AF
types as I understand it).   Systems programming languages such as BCPL, C,
BLISS, *et. al* were not yet in fashion in the wider world, although the
system developers and research types certainly wanted something "better."
 Remember, only a 5-6 years earlier Margaret Hamilton wrote the AGC system
SW at MIT/Draper in assembler.   Ane when this SW was being written, Bill
Wulf would not do the famous BLISS *vs.* PDP-11/PDP-10 assembler test study
(~73) at CMU.

Frankly, I would have expected the folks at this(these) NASA contractor(s)
to have used assembler in those days under the guise of "efficiency;" but
Fortran-IV would definitely have been popular at many contractors that
would have been doing the work.  The article mentions Fortran-V which I
find interesting because I did not believe it was really much of a thing (
*i.e.* it was never standardized).  Basically, as I understood it from my
Fortran peeps at DEC/Intel, F-V was the Waterloo extensions (*a.k.a.*
WatFor) that got picked up by most people and in particular, IBM added to
the FORTRAN/G or H compiler for the S/360.  DEC had gone in a different
direction still with VMS FORTRAN, although I believe they had picked up the
things like WRITE(*) from Waterloo.

I could be misinformed, but I thought that it was not until the Stu Feldman
led what be called the Fortran-77 standard (which IIRC was not completed
until sometime in the early 1980s), that the ISO standard actually moved
from Fortran-IV.  [As, I have said elsewhere, the greatest bit of marketing
DEC ever did was convince the world VMS FORTRAN was F77].

So it would not have been out of the question for the Nasa team to have
used a flavor of post FORTRAN-66/IV as a development like the article
Dennis points to suggests.  But I wish I knew what the ISA of the processor
was/is?   That would likely tell us more.   What were the HLL available for
that processor?   Did NASA invest in having something beyond the assembler
written?

Clem
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[COFF] How much Fortran?

[lm]

On Mon, Feb 03, 2020 at 10:53:22AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 10:47 PM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> > How big was it 30 years ago?  In my opinion, tiny compared to C.
> >
> Be careful, Fortran use is still not tiny (it has always paid my salary,
> and continues to do so).  

Fair enough. I should have said "in my world...".  I learned Fortran
enough to do some work for my dad, learned about accumulated errors
(that's actually pretty fascinating), learned the C/Fortran bindings
because I wrote a user space threads library that could be used from
Fortran, so I was aware of it.

But in the CS department and then later at Sun, everything I came
in contact with was in C.  So in my world it wasn't a thing.

I knew it had a pretty active user base, my buddy Bill Long is on
the Fortran steering committee (or whatever it is called) and we'd
talk about it.  Modern Fortran is apparently a lot more pleasant 
than what I learned.

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[clemc]

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On Mon, Feb 3, 2020 at 11:06 AM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> But in the CS department and then later at Sun, everything I came
> in contact with was in C.  So in my world it wasn't a thing.
>
Mine either mind you, but ... like me, Sun sold a >>lot<< of high-end
systems to run Fortran codes.   Like Masscomp, both firms compiler groups
had to ensure that our Fortran compilers were not just F77, but VMS FORTRAN
compliant - because when UNIX hit the scene, VMS FORTRAN was the *Lingua
Franca* of the users (but just not us system folks).

I always like to know what is paying the bills 😎



>
> Modern Fortran is apparently a lot more pleasant than what I learned.

Without a doubt, but I'd still rather not program in it.😂  I just want to
make sure it works and runs really fast, so our customers want to use a
large number of our high-end chips and keep that robot in AZ that is
turning silicon into gold.
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[COFF] How much Fortran?

[thomas.paulsen]

>How big was it 30 years ago?  In my opinion, tiny compared to C.
 30 years ago OK, however history doesn't stop in 1990. When I visited University in the 70ths almost all academics used fortran, no matter if physics, mathematics, economics, or even social sciences. So I was forced to learn in fortran IV. Outside the academic biotope you had to learn cobol, because almost all development of business applications used this cruel language even in 1990. For me C was a redemption given me the chance to express myself.  I'm now retired and can do whatever I want to do. Hence I left behind c++, java, still using C beside golang and lots of shell scripting.

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[crossd]

On Sun, Feb 2, 2020 at 8:46 PM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> So, given the membership here, I wonder, does anyone have the inside
> scoop? How much Fortran was used ?
>
>
> https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/01/31/1837209/nasa-is-trying-to-save-voyager-2-after-a-power-glitch-shut-down-its-instruments


I have this memory, but I cannot verify it.

When I first joined the ACM, I got to select what SIGs I wanted to
(sub?)join. SIGPLAN seemed interesting because, hey, programming languages
are kind of cool, so I joined it. At the time, they distributed a
newsletter called, I think, the "Fortran Forum"; perhaps that was even a
subgroup inside of SIGPLAN.

I only remember getting one or two issues of the newsletter. But I believe
one of them had an article about Voyager and the use of Fortran. The
article stuck out to me because it mentioned that they thought the mission
would only has for (however long), but of course it's been going on much
longer than originally anticipated. However, I can find no reference to
that now, and perhaps the article I'm recalling wasn't talking about either
Fortran (forth as an alternative?) or a mission other than Voyager.

Regardless, one DOES wonder in what capacity FORTRAN was used in the
mission. Was it used on the onboard computers, or was it used on the
downlink stations for e.g. data analysis?

        - Dan C.
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[COFF] How much Fortran?

[@ 2020-02-03 18:36 UTC (permalink / raw)]

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On 3 Feb 2020 12:06 -0500, from crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross):
> Regardless, one DOES wonder in what capacity FORTRAN was used in the
> mission. Was it used on the onboard computers, or was it used on the
> downlink stations for e.g. data analysis?

I would be _extremely_ surprised if the Voyager probes themselves run
FORTRAN code.

Maybe, possibly, just barely _might_, they run code that was compiled
from FORTRAN code, but that seems unlikely.

Somewhat less unrealistically, they might run software which was
initially prototyped in FORTRAN, before being translated into
something else. But even that seems a stretch.

Adding up the numbers in [1], the memory capacity of each of the
Voyager probes comes out to a total of 557,248 bits (not bytes), split
between custom-built computers with 16 and 18 bit word lengths.
Wikipedia summarizes it as "Total number of words among the six
computers is about 32K." which seems about right; 557,248/17 ~ 32,779,
and two out of the three computer pairs are said to use 18-bit words.

For ground data processing systems to run code written in FORTRAN does
however seem plausible to me.

 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program#Computers_and_data_processing

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
 “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[cym224]

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On 02/03/20 13:36, Michael Kjörling wrote (in part):
>   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program#Computers_and_data_processing
Ref. 32 of the Wikipedia entry points to a fascinating article: 
https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.html "Voyager - The flying 
computer center".

N.

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[dave]

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On Mon, 3 Feb 2020, Clem Cole wrote:

> Frankly, I would have expected the folks at this(these) NASA 
> contractor(s) to have used assembler in those days under the guise of 
> "efficiency;" but Fortran-IV would definitely have been popular at many 
> contractors that would have been doing the work.  The article mentions 
> Fortran-V which I find interesting because I did not believe it was 
> really much of a thing (i.e. it was never standardized).  Basically, as 
> I understood it from my Fortran peeps at DEC/Intel, F-V was the Waterloo 
> extensions (a.k.a. WatFor) that got picked up by most people and in 
> particular, IBM added to the FORTRAN/G or H compiler for the S/360.  DEC 
> had gone in a different direction still with VMS FORTRAN, although I 
> believe they had picked up the things like WRITE(*) from Waterloo.  

And WATFIV as well, as I recall from my student days; it was closer to 
FORTRAN than WATFOR was (both were "student" compilers e.g. better error 
messages but not the best of generated code).

-- Dave

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[wobblygong]

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My thoughts exactly. I was once lucky enough to visit the NASA's
Tidbinbilla Tracking Station in the ACT just a few miles out of
Canberra c. 1976 or 77, and they had some sizeable minicomputers in
their computer room. (How many I don't know.) I imagine they would've
been used to record the transmissions on tape and do some preliminary
processing, before sending the tapes to NASA HQ in the States for
storage and further analysis.

I think what NASA did with their early probes would've made Real
Programmers (TM) sit up and gasp. :)

Does anyone on this list know anyone who worked at a tracking station
during the 60s and 70s? They might be able to help fill in the
details.

Wesley Parish

On 2/4/20, Michael Kjörling <michael at kjorling.se> wrote:
> On 3 Feb 2020 12:06 -0500, from crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross):
>> Regardless, one DOES wonder in what capacity FORTRAN was used in the
>> mission. Was it used on the onboard computers, or was it used on the
>> downlink stations for e.g. data analysis?
>
> I would be _extremely_ surprised if the Voyager probes themselves run
> FORTRAN code.
>
> Maybe, possibly, just barely _might_, they run code that was compiled
> from FORTRAN code, but that seems unlikely.
>
> Somewhat less unrealistically, they might run software which was
> initially prototyped in FORTRAN, before being translated into
> something else. But even that seems a stretch.
>
> Adding up the numbers in [1], the memory capacity of each of the
> Voyager probes comes out to a total of 557,248 bits (not bytes), split
> between custom-built computers with 16 and 18 bit word lengths.
> Wikipedia summarizes it as "Total number of words among the six
> computers is about 32K." which seems about right; 557,248/17 ~ 32,779,
> and two out of the three computer pairs are said to use 18-bit words.
>
> For ground data processing systems to run code written in FORTRAN does
> however seem plausible to me.
>
>  [1]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program#Computers_and_data_processing
>
> --
> Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
>  “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”
>
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[dave]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Rudi Blom wrote:

>>> Regarding Nasa's Tidbinbilla Tracking station, someone suggested to me 
>>> they might >>have had MODCOMPs
>>
>> Dunno about Tidbinbilla, but Parkes ("The Dish") has a roomful of Linux 
>> boxen; I didn't >have time to enquire further.
>
> The questions was
>
> "Does anyone on this list know anyone who worked at a tracking station 
> during the 60s and 70s? They might be able to help fill in the details."
>
> Maybe MODCOMP, but at THAT time for sure no Linux.

I didn't say there was....  Where did you get that idea?

-- Dave

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[dave]

On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Rudi Blom wrote:

> Regarding Nasa's Tidbinbilla Tracking station, someone suggested to me 
> they might have had MODCOMPs

Dunno about Tidbinbilla, but Parkes ("The Dish") has a roomful of Linux 
boxen; I didn't have time to enquire further.

-- Dave

[COFF] How much Fortran?

[rudi.j.blom]

Regarding Nasa's Tidbinbilla Tracking station, someone suggested to me
they might have had MODCOMPs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MODCOMP

Cheers,
uncle rubl

===========
From: Wesley Parish <wobblygong at gmail.com>
To: Computer Old Farts Followers <coff at tuhs.org>
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2020 14:25:25 +1300
Subject: Re: [COFF] How much Fortran?
My thoughts exactly. I was once lucky enough to visit the NASA's
Tidbinbilla Tracking Station in the ACT just a few miles out of
Canberra c. 1976 or 77, and they had some sizeable minicomputers in
their computer room. (How many I don't know.) I imagine they would've
been used to record the transmissions on tape and do some preliminary
processing, before sending the tapes to NASA HQ in the States for
storage and further analysis.

I think what NASA did with their early probes would've made Real
Programmers (TM) sit up and gasp. :)

Does anyone on this list know anyone who worked at a tracking station
during the 60s and 70s? They might be able to help fill in the
details.

Wesley Parish