I'm Nick and I'm usually a full-stack JS developer. Fortran is something foundational to languages we use today, and my professors and parents would talk about it, but I didn't even know what it looked like. I noticed recently that Fortran repos on GitHub accept nearly every pull request (https://medium.com/@mapmeld/fortran-culture-on-github-a257dd...).
One day I wondered if there was a Fortran server, did some Googling, and found a tutorial from 8-10 years ago (http://flibs.sourceforge.net/fortran-fastcgi-nginx.html). I started out updating the tutorial, requesting some missing files and missing instructions from the authors (almost every Fortran info on the web assumes that you already know how to compile and run your program). Once I was halfway down the rabbit hole, updating this tutorial, it felt right to keep it going
Great job! Reason being is I had those same tutorials that I used in language debates. Someone would eventually claim you couldn't do modern apps with (insert "ancient" language). So, I cited Fortran on FastCGI or COBOL on Cogs. Reactions are usually silence or serious revision to points being made.
Yours is a nice improvement. If you want to add to the prank, then maybe do a modern-style app or clone of popular one that would definitely delight people. Relatively small app to not take too much time. Offer them a link to the source in case they want to check it out. Let them find out it's Fortran on thdir own. Observe the reactions while recording the best ones. ;)
Takes me back to the 80's when I worked on a project (for British Telecom) to build a billing system running under Dialcom's custom version of Primos in Fortran and PL1/G and building a forms based input system in Fortran 77.
Hey, I wrote an emulator for Prime minicomputers. It's online:
$ telnet em.prirun.com 8001
Trying 74.131.82.133...
Connected to em.prirun.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
Welcome to the Prime Computer 50-series emulator, running Primos rev 19.2!
Login as user guest, password pr1me
After logging in, use the Prime HELP command for assistance.
You are welcome to create a directory under GUEST for your files.
The line erase character is ?
There are other Primos revs running on ports 8001-8007
Prime manuals at: http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/prime_manuals/prirun_scans
To report bugs or contact the author, send email to prirun@gmail.com
Enjoy your time travels! -Jim Wilcoxson aka JIMMY
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GUEST (user 2) logged in Wednesday, 22 Jun 16 16:39:52.
Welcome to PRIMOS version 19.2.
Last login Sunday, 12 Jun 16 16:37:20.
OK,
I only started looking into it two weeks ago, so setting aside some time here and there on a few weekends, sending emails when it wasn't working. Main challenge was how to go beyond the original tutorial, without getting too deep in the weeds with Fortran
One day I wondered if there was a Fortran server, did some Googling, and found a tutorial from 8-10 years ago (http://flibs.sourceforge.net/fortran-fastcgi-nginx.html). I started out updating the tutorial, requesting some missing files and missing instructions from the authors (almost every Fortran info on the web assumes that you already know how to compile and run your program). Once I was halfway down the rabbit hole, updating this tutorial, it felt right to keep it going