BRITISH COMPUTER SOCIETY - FORTRAN SPECIALIST GROUP
Minutes of meeting held on 29 November 1982
Present: C Burse National Children's Bureau
J L Dyke H R C
W W Flexner Statistical Office of the United Nations (Retd)
B S Hersman Abbey Consulting Associates
D J Holmes Rolls Royce Ltd (Bristol)
C Lazou ULCC
C K MacKinnon UKAEA
B Meek Queen Elizabeth College
J D Murchland
M Nunn CCTA
R Palmer LAMSAC
D M Vallance Salford University (Secretary)
T L van Raalte MOD
J D Wilson Leicester University (Chairman)
1. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
Apologies were received from David Muxworthy (PLU, Edinburgh Univer-
sity).
2. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING [13 September 1982]
5(2) 'Haydn' should be 'Heyden'
5(3) It should be noted that the '60%' is divided equally between
the Specialist Group itself and the BCS Special Projects Fund
which is [administered by] the Specialist Groups Board.
3. MATTERS ARISING
The Chairman has updated and enhanced the Fortran 77 booklist which
appears as Appendix A of these minutes. Members are asked to notify
any further additions or amendments to the Chairman.
The Secretary has not yet written to the ACM regarding the ForTech
newsletter. A number of ACM members have not yet received a personal
copy of the first issue of ForTech. A copy of the application form
for ForTech is included as Appendix B of these minutes. The Secretary
will enquire whether BCS FSG members are entitled to a subscription
discount.
4. TREASURER'S REPORT
The situation is unchanged from that reported in the previous minutes.
The Treasurer has asked the BCS to progress the matter further.
A request for funding for the Group for £350 has been submitted to the
BCS.
Non-BCS FSG members are asked to remit a £2 fee for 1982-83 to the
Treasurer. A slip for this purpose is provided as the last page of
these minutes.
5. CHAIRMAN'S BUSINESS
The Chairman has received a letter from the Editor of Datalink asking
for the co-operation of the Group in keeping Datalink informed of
events relating to Fortran.
The Specialist Groups' Board met on l7 September 1982.
(a) There was concern expressed at the meeting at the high salary
advertised for the post of Specialist Groups' Board Assistant
Secretary for Groups and Branches. The advert asked for an
administrator who was not required to have specialist comput-
ing knowledge.
(b) It was noted that there is a new edition of BCS Handbook No 7,
'Counsellors, Consultants, Expert Witnesses and Arbitrators'.
(c) The Royal Charter was once again discussed. The document will
eventually appear in the BCS Journal.
Brian Meek reported on a proposal he had made to the BSI to enable a
British Standard for a programming language to be defined which was a
subset of any existing international language standard. Brian Meek
had studied BS0 and had noted that the conditions for the existence of
a British Standard, that refers to an existing international standard
all exist for the current ANSI Fortran 77 Standard. The issue at BSI
is the format of any possible British Standard. Such a Standard would
be an essential pre-requisite to persuading the DOI, CCTA, etc. to
adopting 'firming up' measures with the current Standard. The intend-
ing user of such a 'British Standard Conforming Compiler' would be
assured, for example, of a certain minimum set of exception handlers;
that a certain size of program would always be allowed; etc.
Members of the Group who wish to comment on this proposal are asked to
contact Brian Meek directly (Queen Elizabeth College).
No FSG member present at the meeting had yet received a copy of the
minutes of the November X3J3 meeting. The 'S6' document will no
longer be circulated outside X3J3, but it might possibly be merged
with the current Fortran 77 Standard to form a working document.
7. COMPILER SURVEY
Two minor errors and corrections were noted as follows:
The Secretary will attempt to keep the compiler survey up to date.
Micro implementations of Fortran 77 will be included.
The possibility was discussed of preparing a more comprehensive book-
let using the results of benchmarks from a variety of sources.
8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
The Chairman has available a Fortran 77 statement summary. It was
agreed that the Group would pay the X3J3 Service fee of $75 in order
that the Secretary could continue to receive X3J3 minutes.
9. DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING
The next meeting of the Group will take place at BCS Headquarters on
Monday 7 February 1983 at 10.45 a.m. The afternoon session (2.00
p.m.) will be devoted to a presentation by Ken Brodlie of Leicester
University on the implications for Fortran of the Graphical Kernel
System.
10. AFTERNOON SESSION
Chris Lazou of ULCC gave a talk entitled "The CRAY-l as a Fortran Engine".
Notes on the talk appear as Appendix C of these minutes.
Books on FORTRAN 77
All prices are approximate and refer to paperback versions unless stated
otherwise.
----------------------
Language Textbooks
FORTRAN 77 - Harry Katzan Jr.
Van Nostrand Reinhold (1978).
FORTRAN 77 Programming - W. S. Brainerd, C. H. Goldberg & J. L. Gross
Harper & Row (1978).
Programming in Standard FORTRAN 77 - A. Balfour & D. Marwick
Heinemann Educational Books (1979) Price #5-50 (also in
hardback) A comprehensive textbook aimed at both novice and
experienced user: not aimed at any particular discipline. Contains the
full language syntax in an appendix. The authors are in the Computer
Science department of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.
FORTRAN 77 featuring Structured Programming - Loren P. Meissner & Elliott
I. Organick - Addison-Wesley (1979) Price #10.
A comprehensive textbook aimed at both novice and experienced user. One
of the authors (Meissner) is secretary of ANSI X3J3.
FORTRAN 77. Principles of Programming - Jerrold L. Wagener
John Wiley (1980) Price #10-85
The author is a member of ANSI X3J3.
Structured Fortran, a FORTRAN 77 Programming Course - T. M. R. Ellis
University of Sheffield Computing Services (1980) Price #2-60
Handbook designed to accompany a series of 10 video-tape lectures
produced at Sheffield University. The course is aimed at novice users
and covers most of the language; the rest being provided as an Appendix.
The full syntax diagrams are included as an Appendix. The book is a
transcript of the tapes plus examples, language variants etc.. A more
comprehensive textbook by the same author is available, see below.
A Structured Approach to FORTRAN 77 Programming - T. M. R. Ellis
Addison-Wesley (1982) Price #8-95
Based on the earlier video-tape course this book is, however, a much
extended and revised work. The book provides a complete introduction to
programming in the Fortran language. Each Chapter concludes with a
summary of the main points and new language features introduced,
together with many examples. Technicalities, both hardware and software,
are avoided in the early Chapters. Emphasis is placed on good style and
systematic testing. The full language syntax is given as an Appendix.
FORTRAN 77 for Humans - R. Page & R. Didday
West Publishing Co. (1980)
Programming with FORTRAN 77 - J. Ashcroft, R. H. Eldridge,
R. W. Paulson & C. A. Wilson - Granada Publishing (1981)
Price #5-95
A textbook for Mathematicians and Scientists. The authors are in the
Mathematics department of Salford University and the book is written in
the style of a mathematics textbook.
Programming FORTRAN 77 - J. M. P. Hume & Holt
Reston Price #8-40
FORTRAN 77 - D. M. Monro
Arnold Price #8-50
Application_or Method Oriented Books
Fortran with Style, Programming Proverbs - Henry F. Ledgard &
Louis J. Chmura Jr. - Hayden (1978) Price #6.
Programming in Fortran, Structured Programming with FORTRAN IV & FORTRAN 77
Vladimir Zwass - Barnes and Noble Books (1981) Price #3-95
Business Programming in FORTRAN IV & ANSI FORTRAN 77, a Structured Approach
Asad Khailany - Prentice Hall (1981) Price #9-75
Aimed at undergraduate business studies students, it provides basic data
processing and computer organisation material plus considerable detail
about the Fortran language. Contains useful chapter on program and
system design and documentation. Simple example programs illustrate
language features and form useful models for the student to taylor to
his own needs. Fortran is not justified over Cobol. Numerical business
applications (financial modelling, critical path analysis, linear
programming etc.) not covered. The book is up to date in detail and
approach. (A. Clarke Sept 1982)
Problem Solving and Structured Programming in Fortran (2nd. Edition) -
F. Friedman & E. Koffmsn
Addison Wesley (1981)
New edition compatible with FORTRAN 77. Intended to provide more than
adequate coverage for an introductory course.
[The somewhat random layout of this appendix reflects that of the original
typescript.]
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The CRAY-l AS A FORTRAN ENGINE
Chris Lazou, ULCC
The ULCC Cray-1 is configured as follows:
CPU
1 Mword (64-bit words; 8 x 8-bit characters) memory
MCU consisting of
- Data General Eclipse
- 80 MByte Removal disc
- Magnetic tape
- Printer
- 2 VDUs
3 disc controllers
9 x 600M Byte disc drive
The Cray-1 is connected to a 16M Byte Arndahl [sic] V8
The Cray-1 is seen by users as a 'Fortran Engine', although a PASCAL
compiler will soon be available.
Parallelism is achieved by:
- using independent functional units
- using results from one Vector register as an operand to
another function during the same clock pulse
Although the Cray clock period is 2.2 times faster than a 7600, the
average instruction time is only 1.5 times faster.
The Cray Fortran compiler is referred to as CFT.
Cray state that CFT conforms to the ANSI Fortran 77 Standard. The
compiler has passed the FCVS validation tests. There are, however, a
number of problems with the latest release.
Not all the Salford Fortran 77 compiler test programs work correctly.
Length of a CHARACTER variable or constant is limited to 255 charac-
ters. The construct
CHARACTER X*255
X(32:33) = 'AB'
is not always recognised.
There are problems with CHARACTER statement Functions.
Output using 'TR500, TL499', which should be equivalent to 'TR1', does
not work.
CFT is a 2-pass compiler. The first pass builds intermediate forms on
a file. The second assigns registers and generates code. The com-
piler is written in assembler.
The compiler control directives provide options for source file input,
listing output, binary file output and for compiler options. There is
a specific option to control the number of 'vectorisations inhibited'
messages that are output. it is possible to obtain the assembly
language (CAL) listing of a program. A 'double-real' option is
provided to allow single precision programs to be compiled
automatically in double precision. There is a facility for 'flow-
trace' at run time to help with hand optimisation.
There is no ANSI compile-time option at present. Array bound checking
is available, as is Postmortem Dump.
Language extensions are allowed:
- Names can consist of up to 8 characters
- Lower case and upper case letters can be used interchangeably
- CFT allows the " character in addition to the Standard character set
- Comments are allowed of the form:
A = B+C ! This is a comment
The compilation system provides a scientific library which includes
LINPAC and EISPAC in addition to the normal intrinsic routines.
Dates, times etc are available from a systems library.
The following data types are provided:
24- and 64-bit integers
64-bit real
128-bit (software) double precision
2 x 64-bit complex
The 24-bit integers are obtained by means of a compiler directive.
Boolean constants (bit constants) are available.
Logical .TRUE. is represented by a positive value and .FALSE. by a
negative value.
Apostrophes (') or quotation marks (") can be used for character
constants.
.NOT. , .AND. and .OR. may be abbreviated to, respectively, .N.
.A. and .O. .XOR. (.X.) is available as a language extension.
NAMELIST and POINTER are available as extensions. NAMELIST is
implemented as in CDC and IBM Fortran. The syntax of the POINTER
statement is
POINTER (P, A)
where P is a scalar and A is either a scalar or an array.
There is :a limit of 26 unnamed BLOCK DATA subprograms. These are
given different local names by CFT only if they appear in the same
compilation.
The benefits of vectorisation are not significant until arrays become
greater than 4 or 5 elements. The compiler will only vectorise every
program; indeed, some programs to not lend themselves to vec-
torisation.
The manual is perhaps too brief and lacks examples. 'Boundary con-
ditions' are not always stated explicitly.
I am a non-BCS member and wish to remain a member of the BCS Fortran
Specialist Group for the period April 1982 to March 1983. I enclose a
cheque value £2, payable to "BCS Fortran Specialist Group".
Name:
Organisation (if applicable):
Address:
Please send this form, together with your remittance, to
Mr T L Van Raalte
MOD (PE)
AWRE Aldermaston
Reading
Berks RG7 4PR