Answer to McCalpins f77 inquiry

[Knobi der Rechnerschrat]

Dear Mr. McCalpin,

 our experiences with the 4D F77 compiler (which is in fact from MIPS and
NOT from SGI, btw. the f77 for the 31xx series was also not fr4om SGI !!!)
are the following:

- it is a true F77-standard implementation. Don't look for "VAX" extensions,
  but if a program runs on that machine, its runs everywhere.
- if you rely on local variables to be saved across calls, you have to insert
  SAVE statements (as described in the standard). Unfortunately there is no
  compiler switch to do that for  you automatically (f77/3100 had one).
- The compiler (and the whole 4D machine) react angrily on wrong parameter
  lists (number and type).
- We have ported some (three) fortran packets (18000, 25000, 120000 lines
  of code) without much problems (except the SAVE stuff).

 Finally, even if the f77 compiler is not that comfortable and forgiveable
than other f77 compilers, I would never dream of changing from SGI. One of
my worst nightmares is to have a perfect fortran compiler without the
graphics performance to make use of it.

Martin Knoblauch
TH-Darmstadt
Physical Chemistry 1
Petersenstrasse 20
D-6100 Darmstadt, FRG

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