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From: Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Feed control
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2024 11:22:35 -0500
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On 4/3/2024 7:43 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?
> 

This was always, and remains device dependent.

> 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.