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From: db <dieterhansbritz@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Feed control
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2024 12:43:38 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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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?

As an aside, back in the 1970's, working on an
IBM 360, where we handed in a stack of punch cards
to be run and got the output some time later as a
print-out, I once accidentally put a "c" in as the
first character in a line of output, and this caused
an endless paper feed, until the operator stopped
it. I got a stern note never to run that program
again, on top of a thick stack of blank paper.