From: steve@seesignature.invalid   
      
   On 4/3/2024 8:43 AM, db wrote:   
   > When I learned Fortran many years ago, the first   
   > character in a line to be printed (or later,   
   > displayed) controlled line or page feed. A blank   
   > produced a new line, a "1" a new page. We used these   
   > to control what happened.   
   >   
   > These days, this doesn't seem to be the case, so   
   > in a sense, Fortran is no longer backward   
   > compatible in this one sense. Or is it?   
      
   Fortran character control in formatted I/O is a "deleted feature" and is   
   no longer part of the standard. As is typical for deleted features, it   
   is still supported by many compilers, though you may have to ask for it.   
   It also perseveres in such things as list-directed output specifying   
   that the output record starts with a blank.   
      
   Fortran carriage control is an artifact of the line printer era - I   
   remember punching carriage control tapes in the 70s. In addition, many   
   of today's output devices and environments don't support it.   
      
   By definition, deleted features mean that programs that conform to a   
   previous standard no longer conform to the current one. In nearly all   
   cases, these are features that are poor practice and are replaced by   
   better ones, though compilers almost always continue to support them.   
   --   
   Steve Lionel   
   ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 (Fortran) Convenor   
   Retired Intel Fortran developer/support   
   Email: firstname at firstnamelastname dot com   
   Twitter: @DoctorFortran   
   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevelionel   
   Blog: https://stevelionel.com/drfortran   
   WG5: https://wg5-fortran.org   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)