GOTRAN(ID:3074/got001)

Load-and-go FORTRAN 


for "load-and-GO forTRAN"

Simplified 12 instruction subset of FORTRAN.

Ran:

IF
READ
CONTINUE
PRINT
DO
PUNCH
PAUSE
PLOT    
STOP
DIMENSION
GO TO
Arithmetic assignment statement
    


Related languages
FORTRAN II => GOTRAN   Subset

References:
  • [IBM] "1620 GOTRAN Interpretive Programming System, Reference Manual" C26-5594 IBM Product Publications Dept., San Jose, Calif.; 1961. view details
  • [IBM] "IBM 1620 Gotran Preliminary Specifications" J26-4205-0 IBM Product Publications Dept., San Jose, Calif.; 1961. view details
  • Weik, Martin H. "A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems" Rpt 1115, BRL, Maryland, 1961 view details External link: Online copy at Computer History Museum Extract: LARC details
    Univac LARC is designed for large-scale business data processing as well as scientific computing. This includes any problems requiring large amounts of input/output and extremely fast computing, such as data retrieval, linear programming, language translation, atomic codes, equipment design, largescale customer accounting and billing, etc.

        University of California
        Lawrence Radiation Laboratory
        Located at Livermore, California, system is used for the
        solution of differential equations.
    [?]
    Outstanding features are ultra high computing speeds and the input-output control completely independent of computing. Due to the Univac LARC's unusual design features, it is possible to adapt any source of input/output to the Univac LARC. It combines the advantages of Solid State components, modular construction, overlapping operations, automatic error correction and a very fast and a very large memory system.
    [?]
    Outstanding features include a two computer system (arithmetic, input-output processor); decimal fixed or floating point with provisions for double
    precision for double precision arithmetic; single bit error detection of information in transmission and arithmetic operation; and balanced ratio of high speed auxiliary storage with core storage.
    Unique system advantages include a two computer system, which allows versatility and flexibility for handling input-output equipment, and program interrupt on programmer contingency and machine error, which allows greater ease in programming.
  • Andree, Richard Vernon "Gotran Programming for the IBM 1620 Computer" Self-Published 1962. view details
  • Mickel, Joseph "Digital computer programs" University of Texas Engineering Research Computer, Austin, Texas 1963 view details
  • Vaida, D. review of Mickel 1963 view details Abstract: This book contains a collection of 16 programs in GOTRAN, solving simple problems such as tabulations, computation of the standard deviation, solution of a system of three linear algebraic equations by determinants, application of Newton's method, conversion of radians in hours, minutes and seconds, difference table for interpolation and Newtonian interpolation, integration by Simpson's rule, reduction of a set of equations by the Gaussian method etc. These programs can be run on the IBM-1620 computer as a GOTRAN program, on the IBM-650 as a FORTRANSIT program and also as a FORTRAN program, but with some modifications. The collection is "presented for the student who wishes to learn from explained examples instead of abstract theory"; however, the reviewer feels that some references to the general principles of GOTRAN programming were necessary.
          in ACM Computing Reviews 4(06) November-December 1963 view details
  • Andree, Richard Vernon, "Computer Programming and Related Mathematics", John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1967. view details
          in ACM Computing Reviews 4(06) November-December 1963 view details
  • Haag, James N.; Kelly, Michael A.; Sherman, Paul F. "TWO-D: The USF Beginner's Two-Dimensional Programming System" view details Extract: INTRODUCTION
    INTRODUCTION
    TWO-D is a simply-designed interactive two-dimensional programming system. It is CRT-terminal oriented, verb-driven, and is designed for the casual or unsophisticated user. The system is highly modular in design and coded wherever feasible in a higher level language, ANSI Fortran in the current implementation, to facilitate modification, transportability, and later conversion to fourth-generation computers.

    All communication with the operating system of the host computer is provided via five additional modules coded in a total of 888 lines of 360 assembly language with a few readily-converted UNIVAC Series 70 Input/ Output macros. At all times with TWO-D, the user has the impression that he is programming in and manipulating a flowchart.
    Extract: DESIGN RATIONALE AND SOME FACTS
    DESIGN RATIONALE AND SOME FACTS
    The TWO-D system, consisting of about 100,000 bytes (about 1/3 of which consists of data areas), does not have a separate syntax for system commands and problemprogramming commands. The advice followed in reaching this decision is summarized in the following"... control language should be, to the largest extent possible, the same as the actual language used to write the solutions to problems." In passing, it should not go unnoted that there are good arguments on the other side of this question. However, for the naive user, our decision seemed Justifiable.

    Using a flowchart symbol and its contents as the basic entity of the language was based upon the assumption that such an arrangment can be treated mentally by the user readily as a single "chunk" and, secondly, upon the fact that such an arrangement carries with it not only the full semantics of a single one-dimensional programming language instruction, but also (due to the connectors emanating from the symbol) a visual indication of the context in which the symbol appears. One well-kuaown theory of human problem solving holds that we are information processing systems limited by the number of symbols/second that we can process. As a result, if one can increase the amount of information/symbol, then the rate of information processing will increase. This theory makes the following interesting claim: "Any stimulus configuration that becomes a recognizable configuration (chunk) is designated in long-term memory by a symbol. Writing a new symbol structure that contains K familiar symbols takes about 5K to 10K seconds of processing time. Accessing and reading a symbol out of long-term memory takes a few hundred milliseconds."

    Although the current prototype version of TWO-D is not reentrant, the design has been so chosen as to make a pure procedure version attainable in the future. It is roughly estimated that each additional user would increase the memory requirements on the order of 500 bytes/user TWO-D instruction required to be always in core, plus a few thousand bytes of data areas held in core. Even though the current version yields an eventual Fortran program (transparently to the user) for execution, only two modules of the nineteen-module system need be changed to yield a final program embodied in another similar target language. It should be noted here that others modifying the TWO-D system might wish to change these two modules to cause the system to behave as an interpreter or as a compiler, instead of as a translator in the current version. Viewed as a translator, the TWO-D system with its current 3,756 lines of source code, of which 76~ is Fortran with the remainder in assembly language, falls in between two other "something-to-Fortran" translators as regards the percentage of Fortran source code used in coding the system. The "GOTRAN-to-Fortran" translator is 100% Fortran. On the other hand, the "ASP (Artificial Scientific Programming)-to- Fortran" translator is 47% Fortran and 53% SNOBOL.

    Finally, it is hoped that eventually a software system in the same class as TWO-D will be to CRT-terminal users as Basic is now to the typewriter-terminal user. The comments on the one-dlmension versus two-dimension matter with respect to both human I/O and different I/O devices give some hope that this will be a fact. Limited experience with a few TWO-D users on a system implemented on a UNIVAC Series 70 Time-Sharing System at the University of San Francisco temporarily confirms the author's feelings that TWO-D, while not the goal, is on the track leading to the goal.

          in Proceedings of the SIGPLAN symposium on Two-dimensional man-machine communication 1972 , Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States view details
  • Maniotes, J., Higley, H. B., & Haag, J., N. "Beginning Fortran Simplified 12 - Statement Programming" Hayden Book Co., New York, 1971 view details
          in Proceedings of the SIGPLAN symposium on Two-dimensional man-machine communication 1972 , Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States view details
  • Stock, Karl F. "A listing of some programming languages and their users" in RZ-Informationen. Graz: Rechenzentrum Graz 1971 118 view details Abstract: 321 Programmiersprachen mit Angabe der Computer-Hersteller, auf deren Anlagen die entsprechenden Sprachen verwendet werden kennen. Register der 74 Computer-Firmen; Reihenfolge der Programmiersprachen nach der Anzahl der Herstellerfirmen, auf deren Anlagen die Sprache implementiert ist; Reihenfolge der Herstellerfirmen nach der Anzahl der verwendeten Programmiersprachen.

    [321 programming languages with indication of the computer manufacturers, on whose machinery the appropriate languages are used to know.  Register of the 74 computer companies;  Sequence of the programming languages after the number of manufacturing firms, on whose plants the language is implemented;  Sequence of the manufacturing firms after the number of used programming languages.]
          in Proceedings of the SIGPLAN symposium on Two-dimensional man-machine communication 1972 , Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States view details
  • Stock, Marylene and Stock, Karl F. "Bibliography of Programming Languages: Books, User Manuals and Articles from PLANKALKUL to PL/I" Verlag Dokumentation, Pullach/Munchen 1973 269 view details Abstract: PREFACE  AND  INTRODUCTION
    The exact number of all the programming languages still in use, and those which are no longer used, is unknown. Zemanek calls the abundance of programming languages and their many dialects a "language Babel". When a new programming language is developed, only its name is known at first and it takes a while before publications about it appear. For some languages, the only relevant literature stays inside the individual companies; some are reported on in papers and magazines; and only a few, such as ALGOL, BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, and PL/1, become known to a wider public through various text- and handbooks. The situation surrounding the application of these languages in many computer centers is a similar one.

    There are differing opinions on the concept "programming languages". What is called a programming language by some may be termed a program, a processor, or a generator by others. Since there are no sharp borderlines in the field of programming languages, works were considered here which deal with machine languages, assemblers, autocoders, syntax and compilers, processors and generators, as well as with general higher programming languages.

    The bibliography contains some 2,700 titles of books, magazines and essays for around 300 programming languages. However, as shown by the "Overview of Existing Programming Languages", there are more than 300 such languages. The "Overview" lists a total of 676 programming languages, but this is certainly incomplete. One author ' has already announced the "next 700 programming languages"; it is to be hoped the many users may be spared such a great variety for reasons of compatibility. The graphic representations (illustrations 1 & 2) show the development and proportion of the most widely-used programming languages, as measured by the number of publications listed here and by the number of computer manufacturers and software firms who have implemented the language in question. The illustrations show FORTRAN to be in the lead at the present time. PL/1 is advancing rapidly, although PL/1 compilers are not yet seen very often outside of IBM.

    Some experts believe PL/1 will replace even the widely-used languages such as FORTRAN, COBOL, and ALGOL.4) If this does occur, it will surely take some time - as shown by the chronological diagram (illustration 2) .

    It would be desirable from the user's point of view to reduce this language confusion down to the most advantageous languages. Those languages still maintained should incorporate the special facets and advantages of the otherwise superfluous languages. Obviously such demands are not in the interests of computer production firms, especially when one considers that a FORTRAN program can be executed on nearly all third-generation computers.

    The titles in this bibliography are organized alphabetically according to programming language, and within a language chronologically and again alphabetically within a given year. Preceding the first programming language in the alphabet, literature is listed on several languages, as are general papers on programming languages and on the theory of formal languages (AAA).
    As far as possible, the most of titles are based on autopsy. However, the bibliographical description of sone titles will not satisfy bibliography-documentation demands, since they are based on inaccurate information in various sources. Translation titles whose original titles could not be found through bibliographical research were not included. ' In view of the fact that nany libraries do not have the quoted papers, all magazine essays should have been listed with the volume, the year, issue number and the complete number of pages (e.g. pp. 721-783), so that interlibrary loans could take place with fast reader service. Unfortunately, these data were not always found.

    It is hoped that this bibliography will help the electronic data processing expert, and those who wish to select the appropriate programming language from the many available, to find a way through the language Babel.

    We wish to offer special thanks to Mr. Klaus G. Saur and the staff of Verlag Dokumentation for their publishing work.

    Graz / Austria, May, 1973
          in Proceedings of the SIGPLAN symposium on Two-dimensional man-machine communication 1972 , Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States view details
  • Creak, Alan "Everything is Fortran, in its own way" How things were? pp7-12 view details Abstract: In this step, I was specially privileged by being forced to use a sawn-off Fortran called Gotran, which ran on an IBM1620 machine. Gotran was a Fortran interpreter which was fast because it avoided the Fortran compiler’s very slow paper tape operations, at the cost of limiting arithmetic expressions to one operator or function call  in effect, simple sentences. Once a child has learnt to form simple sentences, more complex sentence structures are developed very quickly ( Pinker describes it as an explosion ), and indeed full Fortran was but a small step from Gotran.
          in SIGPLAN Notices 37(4) April 2002 view details
    Resources
    • GOTRAN ON THE IBM 1316 DISK STORAGE PACK (Serial No. K7402)

      GOTRAN was used by academic institutions during the 1960s and 1970s for a
      variety of reasons.


      We used it because it was an easy language for students to learn programming
      compared to the existing lanuages at that time.


      Other institutions used it because they did not have access to a time sharing
      mini computer with the BASIC interpreter.


      Still other used GOTRAN because you could process many SMALL student oriented
      programs without going thru a time consuming compilation as with the 1620
      Fortran system.


      Anyway, GOTRAN  was a fun language for beginners to
      program.  Listed below are some GOTRAN references that were available to our students
      at that time:



          
      1. 1620 GOTRAN Interpretive Programming System, Reference Manual, C26-5594,
          IBM
          
      2. Beginning Fortran, Simplified 12 - Statement Programming, Maniotes, J.,
          Higley, H. B., & Haag, J., N., Hayden Book Co., New York, 1971
          
      3. Computer Programming and Related Mathematics,  Andree, R. V., John
          Wiley & Sons, New York, 1967.

      The GOTRAN interpreter came either on paper tape or punched cards. 
      Later a disk version came out which ran under the Monitor I OS.


      Appendix B of reference (2) describes the operating procedure for:



          
      1. GOTRAN for a card oriented 1620 system
          
      2. GOTAFIT for a disk oriented 1620 system

      Appendix G of reference (2), contains 2 translator
      programs that were used to convert GOTRAN source programs to either Fortran II or Fortran IV
      programs, respectively.

      external link