FORTRAN 77 Presented by: Destry Diefenbach

The Free Online Dictionary of Computing (http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/)

Fortrash /for'trash/ Hackerism for the Fortran language, referring to its primitive

design, gross and irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and slippery,
exception-filled semantics. [Jargon File] (1994-10-26)

 “Algol is FORTRAN done right.” -Bruce Knobe, 1973  “Pascal is FORTRAN done
right.” -Raymond Langsford, 1980  “FORTRAN 77 is FORTRAN done right.” -James Ball,
1983

History of FORTRAN  Stands for IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslation System but
abbreviated to FORmula TRANslation  FORTRAN 0 was developed by a IBM research team
headed by John Backus in 1954.  Was the first high-level programming language

John Backus 1924-1988

More History  The design of FORTRAN made it easier to translate mathematical

formulas into code.  FORTRAN originally began as a digital code interpreter for
the IBM 701  At that time it was called Speedcoding  The point of FORTRAN was to
make programming easier.

IBM 701

FORTRAN I 1957  Was the first compiler  By 1958 over 50% of software was in
FORTRAN  Cut development time. 

2 weeks to 2 hours

FORTRAN II - IV  FORTRAN II  

Independent compilation Fix the bugs

 FORTRAN III 

Was developed, but it was never widely distrbuted

 FORTRAN IV    

Explicit type declarations Logical selection (IF) statement Subprogram names could
be parameters ANSI standard in 1966

FORTRAN 77  FORTRAN 77 replaced FORTRAN IV as the new standard.  It retained most

of the features of IV  It added  

Character string handling Logical loop control statements And a If with a optional
else statement

Data Types

FORTRAN 77 explicitly permits data types of integer, real, double precision,

complex, logical, and characters.

Real Data Types  Represent decimal numbers  It uses scientific notation  

3E5 .123E-3
300000 .000123

Double Precision Data Types  Instead of E it used D 

1D2

100

Complex Data Types  Built in complex number data type  Which occupies 2 bytes 
The first byte in the pair represents the real part of the complex data type.  The
second byte represents the imaginary part of the complex item. represented as
follows Numeric Value (4.61,-6.81) 4.61 – 6.81i (-10,5) -10+5i

Program Structure  A FORTRAN program is a collection of subprogram definitions. 

Subprograms may be a FUNCTION that returns values, a SUBROUTINE that doesn’t return
a value, and one must be the “main program”

Main Program  The main program receives control of the processor when an
executable program is loaded for execution.  There can be only one main program in
an executable program.  That main program is identified by the fact that it does
not have a FUNCTION, SUBROUTINE, or BLOCK DATA statement as its initial statement.

Intrinsic Functions  FORTRAN 77 has many intrinsic functions 

Examples SQRT( )  FLOAT( ),INT ( )  COS( ),SIN( ), TAN( ) 

square root type conversions trig functions

Statement Functions  Statement functions are one line defined functions that is
internal to the program unit in which it is defined 

Example of a statement function 

ROOT(A,B,C) = (-B+SQRT(B**2-4.0*A*C))/(2.0*A)

Subprograms  The main abstraction devices in FORTRAN 77 are the subroutines and
functions.  The subroutine definition 

SUBROUTINE SWAP (I,J)

M=I I=J J=M RETURN END Functions are structurally similar to subroutines.

Control Structures  GOTO statements  IF statements  DO statement  CONTINUE

statement  STOP and PAUSE statements  END statement

GOTO Statements  The GOTO statement is used to direct program control to indicated
by the statement number specified in the respective GOTO statement  Three types of
GOTO statements  

Unconditional GOTO 100 Computed GOTO(1,2,3)I Assigned GOTO I,(1,2,3)

IF Statements  Contains IF, ELSE IF, ELSE, END IF  Example 

IF(Q) THEN A=B C=D ELSE IF (R) THEN E=F G=H ELSE X=Y Z=W END IF

DO Statement  The DO statement is used to establish a controlled loop  Example DO



DO 10 I = 1,10,1

CONTINUE,STOP PAUSE, and END STATEMENT  The CONTINUE statement serves as a point
of reference in a program  

No operational function is performed It is frequently used in DO loops to provide a

terminal statement

 The STOP and PAUSE statements do a similar task  

The STOP terminates execution The PAUSE terminates execution, but leaves the
program in a resumable state

 The END statement marks the physical end of a program

EVALUATION  Readability  Writability  Reliability  Cost

Readability  FORTRAN 77 is not to hard to read on a small scale, but when many
GOTO statements are involved it gets very difficult  Identifiers can only be six
characters long

Writability  Depends on what you are using it for.  Is a pretty simply language

Reliability  Is not very reliable  Only static type checking  Lack of exception
handling

Cost  Cheap  Lots of free resources/compilers  A fairly easy language to learn

Bibliography 

Marshall, A C. A Brief History of FORTRAN 77. 8 Sept. 1997

http://www.liv.ac.uk/HPC/HTMLF90Course/HTMLF90CourseNotesnode29.html

ibiblio.org. A Brief History of FORTRAN. No date

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/languages/fortran/ch1-1.html

American National Standards Institute, Inc. American National Standard Programming

Language FORTRAN. April 3, 1978. http://www.fortran.com/F77_std/rjcnf-0.html

Chivers, Ian D. Sleightholme, Jane. Interactive FORTRAN 77: A Hands on Approach 2nd
ed. 1984. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/support/cit//fortran/f77book.pdf

William, Waite. FORTRAN 77 Semantic Analysis. No date.

http://eliproject.sourceforge.net/fortran_html/Semantics.html#s1

Bellis, Mary. Inventors of the Modern Computer. No date.

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa072198.htm


Page, Rex. Didday, Rich. Alpert, Elizabeth. FORTRAN 77 for Humans, 3rd ed. 1986
West Publishing Company

Katzan, Harry Jr. FORTRAN 77, Computer Science Series. 1978 Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company