-------- Forwarded Message -------- Path: eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Lynn McGuire lynnmcguire5@gmail.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Subject: "Programming language life expectancy" Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 20:08:20 -0500 Message-ID: oo7na9$r8v$1@dont-email.me Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.fortran:69454 comp.lang.c:197385 comp.lang.c++:101574
"Programming language life expectancy"
https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2017/08/19/programming-language-life-expectancy/
"The Lindy effect says that what’s been around the longest is likely to remain around the longest. It applies to creative artifacts, not living things. A puppy is likely to live longer than an elderly dog, but a book that has been in press for a century is likely to be in press for another century."
"“We don’t know what language engineers will be coding in in the year 2100. However, we do know that it will be called FORTRAN.” — C.A.R. Hoare"
Lynn
And nothing will ever run like a FOX!
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Man-wai Chang Sent: 31 August 2017 14:55 To: ProFox Email List profox@leafe.com Subject: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Path: eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Lynn McGuire lynnmcguire5@gmail.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Subject: "Programming language life expectancy" Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 20:08:20 -0500 Message-ID: oo7na9$r8v$1@dont-email.me Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.fortran:69454 comp.lang.c:197385 comp.lang.c++:101574
"Programming language life expectancy"
https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2017/08/19/programming-language-life-expectancy/
"The Lindy effect says that what’s been around the longest is likely to remain around the longest. It applies to creative artifacts, not living things. A puppy is likely to live longer than an elderly dog, but a book that has been in press for a century is likely to be in press for another century."
"“We don’t know what language engineers will be coding in in the year 2100. However, we do know that it will be called FORTRAN.” — C.A.R. Hoare"
Lynn
-- .~. Might, Courage, Vision. SINCERITY! / v \ 64-bit Fedora 25 Server Spin /( _ )\ http://sites.google.com/site/changmw ^ ^ May the Force and farces be with you!
_______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/CAGv=MJD4QgQ8DkTn2ar_7JexsOkFtrnZp-01... ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
I often wonder what would have happened if Dave Fulton had bought out Bill Gates instead of the other way round.
Laurie
On 31 August 2017 at 15:10, Dave Crozier DaveC@flexipol.co.uk wrote:
And nothing will ever run like a FOX!
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Man-wai Chang Sent: 31 August 2017 14:55 To: ProFox Email List profox@leafe.com Subject: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Path: eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED! not-for-mail From: Lynn McGuire lynnmcguire5@gmail.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Subject: "Programming language life expectancy" Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 20:08:20 -0500 Message-ID: oo7na9$r8v$1@dont-email.me Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.fortran:69454 comp.lang.c:197385 comp.lang.c++:101574
"Programming language life expectancy"
https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2017/08/19/programming- language-life-expectancy/
"The Lindy effect says that what’s been around the longest is likely to remain around the longest. It applies to creative artifacts, not living things. A puppy is likely to live longer than an elderly dog, but a book that has been in press for a century is likely to be in press for another century."
"“We don’t know what language engineers will be coding in in the year 2100. However, we do know that it will be called FORTRAN.” — C.A.R. Hoare"
Lynn
-- .~. Might, Courage, Vision. SINCERITY! / v \ 64-bit Fedora 25 Server Spin /( _ )\ http://sites.google.com/site/changmw ^ ^ May the Force and farces be with you!
[excessive quoting removed by server]
These last few days, I am smiling when I read Profox : I thought I was the only 'Foxil' still working with Foxpro DOS (I have an app working on a Compaq PC that is 23 years old !) and I am an 'expert' of FORTRAN : when I was in university it was one the few languages available (with COBOL and a little later C).
I still work with FORTRAN : one of my client is EDF (French national Electricity Delivery). They where building simulations with 'R' (A new language easy to use but .... slow). As a test, I translate one of them to FORTRAN : running time went from 20 minutes to less than 3 seconds (on a multicore machine with FORTRAN MPI). Since then, I translate a lot and they began to build large simulations (one hour of FORTRAN !).
I have two drawbacks : - I can't 'teach' the new scientists that working with integer is a lot quicker than working with real numbers - the FORTRAN exe run in a 'dos window' within Windows XP and I have no access to the energy saver parameters. So, after 15 minutes, the PC goes to stand by mode because Windows is not able to detect that a 'DOS' exe is running. So I bought a 'rotating fan', fixed the mouse on it so it moves continously right and left and ... windows stay 'alive' !!
The Foxil
Brilliant ingenuity!
I started on Fortran, Algol 60 and COBOL but only liked Algol and went on to love Pascal obviously.
All our previous work with older products and technologies does put us in a much better situation to analyse and overcome deficiencies in newer software... specifically the memory hungry ones around at present.
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Jean MAURICE Sent: 31 August 2017 15:39 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: [OT] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
These last few days, I am smiling when I read Profox : I thought I was the only 'Foxil' still working with Foxpro DOS (I have an app working on a Compaq PC that is 23 years old !) and I am an 'expert' of FORTRAN : when I was in university it was one the few languages available (with COBOL and a little later C).
I still work with FORTRAN : one of my client is EDF (French national Electricity Delivery). They where building simulations with 'R' (A new language easy to use but .... slow). As a test, I translate one of them to FORTRAN : running time went from 20 minutes to less than 3 seconds (on a multicore machine with FORTRAN MPI). Since then, I translate a lot and they began to build large simulations (one hour of FORTRAN !).
I have two drawbacks : - I can't 'teach' the new scientists that working with integer is a lot quicker than working with real numbers - the FORTRAN exe run in a 'dos window' within Windows XP and I have no access to the energy saver parameters. So, after 15 minutes, the PC goes to stand by mode because Windows is not able to detect that a 'DOS' exe is running. So I bought a 'rotating fan', fixed the mouse on it so it moves continously right and left and ... windows stay 'alive' !!
The Foxil
[excessive quoting removed by server]
On 2017-09-01 03:31, Dave Crozier wrote:
Brilliant ingenuity!
I started on Fortran, Algol 60 and COBOL but only liked Algol and went on to love Pascal obviously.
Loved loved loved Pascal way back in the late 80s/early 90s. I think somebody said that Delphi is today's Pascal?
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Laurie
On 1 September 2017 at 16:56, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:
On 2017-09-01 03:31, Dave Crozier wrote:
Brilliant ingenuity!
I started on Fortran, Algol 60 and COBOL but only liked Algol and went on to love Pascal obviously.
Loved loved loved Pascal way back in the late 80s/early 90s. I think somebody said that Delphi is today's Pascal?
[excessive quoting removed by server]
Hi Laurie,
I had a Vic20 and I think it was the first microcomputer to have 64koctets of memory. It was based on a 6502 microprocessor. I spent a lot of nights with it .... before meeting my future wife !
The Foxil
Le 01/09/2017 19:04, Laurie Alvey a écrit :
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Laurie
Same chip as original Apple II.
Yeah baby!
On 9/1/2017 1:11 PM, Jean MAURICE wrote:
Hi Laurie,
I had a Vic20 and I think it was the first microcomputer to have 64koctets of memory. It was based on a 6502 microprocessor. I spent a lot of nights with it .... before meeting my future wife !
The Foxil
Le 01/09/2017 19:04, Laurie Alvey a écrit :
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Laurie
[excessive quoting removed by server]
"The VIC-20 had 5 KB of RAM, of which only 3.5 KB remained available on startup (exactly 3583 bytes)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 1:04 PM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Yeah, the one "with the enormous memory" was the Commodore 64 (64K)!
Laurie
On 1 September 2017 at 18:44, Ted Roche tedroche@gmail.com wrote:
"The VIC-20 had 5 KB of RAM, of which only 3.5 KB remained available on startup (exactly 3583 bytes)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 1:04 PM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a
Commodore
VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
[excessive quoting removed by server]
So, I think I am beginning with Alzheimer !
The Foxil
Le 01/09/2017 20:44, Laurie Alvey a écrit :
Yeah, the one "with the enormous memory" was the Commodore 64 (64K)!
Laurie
On 1 September 2017 at 18:44, Ted Roche tedroche@gmail.com wrote:
"The VIC-20 had 5 KB of RAM, of which only 3.5 KB remained available on startup (exactly 3583 bytes)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 1:04 PM, Laurie Alvey trukker41@gmail.com wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a
Commodore
VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
I first learned to program in a very primitive form of BASIC on an Elliott 4130. The first 'real' program was to analyse the data from a flight trial and became quite convoluted. Unfortunately the system didn't have a renumber option and could only print the code in the order it was entered rather than numerical order. I found it very difficult to debug and ended up by cutting a printout into individual lines then pasting them on to a blank sheet in the correct sequence. Fortunately soon after it was replaced by a DEC20 with an Algol compiler; I taught myself Algol in awe and wonder at its power and never looked back :-)
John
John Weller 01380 723235 079763 93631 Sent from my iPad
TI-994A. Unpacked it at 2:00 in the afternoon, started playing with BASIC, and a few minutes later realized it was 3:30 AM.
On 9/1/2017 1:04 PM, Laurie Alvey wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Been there, done that with a TRS-80 Model 1. Several times.
Fred
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 3:59 PM, Vince Teachout teachv@taconic.net wrote:
TI-994A. Unpacked it at 2:00 in the afternoon, started playing with BASIC, and a few minutes later realized it was 3:30 AM.
On 9/1/2017 1:04 PM, Laurie Alvey wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
[excessive quoting removed by server]
+1 Paul
Ps: first real program was to determine if a frog was sitting 8 feet away from a pond and he could jump half the distance to the pond with each jump, how many jumps would it take to reach the water? Any guesses?
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 1, 2017, at 7:13 PM, Fred Taylor fbtaylor@gmail.com wrote:
Been there, done that with a TRS-80 Model 1. Several times.
Fred
On Fri, Sep 1, 2017 at 3:59 PM, Vince Teachout teachv@taconic.net wrote:
TI-994A. Unpacked it at 2:00 in the afternoon, started playing with BASIC, and a few minutes later realized it was 3:30 AM.
On 9/1/2017 1:04 PM, Laurie Alvey wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
[excessive quoting removed by server]
On 2017-09-01 13:04, Laurie Alvey wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Oh yes. My first was GW-BASIC on our AT&T home computer.
10 PRINT "Hello" 20 GOTO 10
:-)
The first computer I owned was a Dragon32, but I had learned BASIC years before on a GE remote time-sharing mainframe. With the instructor's help I wrote an algorithmic solution to a maths puzzle that had plagued me for years. If anyone wants to try it, here's the puzzle:
A farmer tethers a bull at the circumference of a circular field of known diameter so the bull can graze half of the area of the field. How long is the rope? /(This is supposed to have been set, by accident, as an O level maths question - it should probably have said the centre of the field, although that would be a bit trivial.)/ <snip>
--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html ---
This problem was part of my OU Maths foundation course. It does not have a simple solution, involves a lot of trigonometry and then iteration to converge to the solution. As I recall, the answer, was about 0.6 of the radius.
Laurie
On 2 September 2017 at 13:52, AndyHC andy@hawthorncottage.com wrote:
The first computer I owned was a Dragon32, but I had learned BASIC years before on a GE remote time-sharing mainframe. With the instructor's help I wrote an algorithmic solution to a maths puzzle that had plagued me for years. If anyone wants to try it, here's the puzzle:
A farmer tethers a bull at the circumference of a circular field of known diameter so the bull can graze half of the area of the field. How long is the rope? /(This is supposed to have been set, by accident, as an O level maths question - it should probably have said the centre of the field, although that would be a bit trivial.)/
<snip>
--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html
[excessive quoting removed by server]
First paying programming job was to build an invoicing program using GW-Basic on a Canon Ap-200(?). PC with 64k, Hercules video card with green mono 12" screen and an Epson FX-80. Loved that setup! Good times for sure!
Paul
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 1, 2017, at 9:37 PM, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:
On 2017-09-01 13:04, Laurie Alvey wrote: Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Oh yes. My first was GW-BASIC on our AT&T home computer.
10 PRINT "Hello" 20 GOTO 10
:-)
[excessive quoting removed by server]
Yup - I indeed started w/BASIC!
On 9/1/2017 1:04 PM, Laurie Alvey wrote:
Didn't everyone at least dabble with BASIC? I started out with a Commodore VIC20 which (I believe), had 3.2 kB of RAM.
Laurie
On 1 September 2017 at 16:56, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:
On 2017-09-01 03:31, Dave Crozier wrote:
Brilliant ingenuity!
I started on Fortran, Algol 60 and COBOL but only liked Algol and went on to love Pascal obviously.
Loved loved loved Pascal way back in the late 80s/early 90s. I think somebody said that Delphi is today's Pascal?
[excessive quoting removed by server]
Delphi yeah, it's Pascal with objects. There's also Free Pascal and Lazarus.
My first real programming outside 8-bit home computers was Pascal on a VAX II/780 mainframe. 15 minutes to compile when the lab was busy.
Borland Turbo Pascal V2 was the real turning point for me.... all on a 360Kb floppy and only about 50 UK Pounds. I wrote a myriad of business apps with it and started my first self employed business on the back of it. It was magical to demonstrate the speed, ease of use and flexibility to all my ex ICL colleagues who were still working on mainframes at the time. Turbo Pascal, Sidekick to multi task and edit meant you could write virtually anything.
I then progressed to Turbo Pascal 3 and FoxBase/Foxplus etc. on DOS and SCO Xenix as well as other xBase products starting mainly with Dbase II. III and IV, Nantucket Clipper V4.3 which was super-fast and ultra reliable.
CA Visual Objects was the first product to encompass Objects into an "xBase like" framework but I never got on with it as it was too regimented and structured for my liking despite buying it along with RBase 2 and 3, an Ashton Tate product that was a good attempt at generating multi tier relational database models.
Oh happy days and I still have all the original software, manuals and disks!!
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Alan Bourke Sent: 05 September 2017 09:18 To: profoxtech@leafe.com Subject: Re: [NF] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
My first real programming outside 8-bit home computers was Pascal on a VAX II/780 mainframe. 15 minutes to compile when the lab was busy.
-- Alan Bourke alanpbourke (at) fastmail (dot) fm
On Fri, 1 Sep 2017, at 04:56 PM, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:
On 2017-09-01 03:31, Dave Crozier wrote:
Brilliant ingenuity!
I started on Fortran, Algol 60 and COBOL but only liked Algol and went on to love Pascal obviously.
Loved loved loved Pascal way back in the late 80s/early 90s. I think somebody said that Delphi is today's Pascal?
[excessive quoting removed by server]
... not forgetting Aston Tate Framework 1 and II which were great for generating demo systems.
At the time the A.C.T. Sirius I and Victor 9000 PC's came out (Designed by the famous Chuck Peddle of Amiga fame) there was also a product called "The Last One" which said it would be the only programming product you would ever need. Sirius used it to promote the advanced Sirius II which had variable speed 1.2Mb floppy drives on it.... really high tech but nobody else could read the disks!
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Dave Crozier Sent: 05 September 2017 11:10 To: ProFox Email List profox@leafe.com Subject: RE: [NF] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
Borland Turbo Pascal V2 was the real turning point for me.... all on a 360Kb floppy and only about 50 UK Pounds. I wrote a myriad of business apps with it and started my first self employed business on the back of it. It was magical to demonstrate the speed, ease of use and flexibility to all my ex ICL colleagues who were still working on mainframes at the time. Turbo Pascal, Sidekick to multi task and edit meant you could write virtually anything.
I then progressed to Turbo Pascal 3 and FoxBase/Foxplus etc. on DOS and SCO Xenix as well as other xBase products starting mainly with Dbase II. III and IV, Nantucket Clipper V4.3 which was super-fast and ultra reliable.
CA Visual Objects was the first product to encompass Objects into an "xBase like" framework but I never got on with it as it was too regimented and structured for my liking despite buying it along with RBase 2 and 3, an Ashton Tate product that was a good attempt at generating multi tier relational database models.
Oh happy days and I still have all the original software, manuals and disks!!
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Alan Bourke Sent: 05 September 2017 09:18 To: profoxtech@leafe.com Subject: Re: [NF] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
My first real programming outside 8-bit home computers was Pascal on a VAX II/780 mainframe. 15 minutes to compile when the lab was busy.
-- Alan Bourke alanpbourke (at) fastmail (dot) fm
On Fri, 1 Sep 2017, at 04:56 PM, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:
On 2017-09-01 03:31, Dave Crozier wrote:
Brilliant ingenuity!
I started on Fortran, Algol 60 and COBOL but only liked Algol and went on to love Pascal obviously.
Loved loved loved Pascal way back in the late 80s/early 90s. I think somebody said that Delphi is today's Pascal?
[excessive quoting removed by server]
there was also a product called "The Last One" which said it would be the only programming product you would ever need.
Microsoft are still doing that.
On 05-Sep-17 12:01 PM, Alan Bourke wrote:
there was also a product called "The Last One" which said it would be the only programming product you would ever need.
Microsoft are still doing that.
<bg>
I often wondered what happened to 'The Last One' - I never met anyone who'd actually used it, possibly because the advertising was directed at PHBs.
It was completely crap Andy .... tried it once and then binned it..... but then again it was only a free marketing aid.
I stuck with the good old trilogy that you could do virtually anything with:
Wordstar Supercalc (or Visicalc) DBASE
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of AndyHC Sent: 05 September 2017 16:11 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: Re: [NF] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
On 05-Sep-17 12:01 PM, Alan Bourke wrote:
there was also a product called "The Last One" which said it would be the only programming product you would ever need.
Microsoft are still doing that.
<bg>
I often wondered what happened to 'The Last One' - I never met anyone who'd actually used it, possibly because the advertising was directed at PHBs.
[excessive quoting removed by server]
Reading up on it it was sort of ahead of its time insofar as it was a simple interface that then generated BASIC code.
The code generated was really contrived and difficult to modify..
Similar to the code in the VFP Wizards which I have always avoided like the plague apart from borrowing snippets of code from them now and again.
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Alan Bourke Sent: 06 September 2017 10:38 To: profoxtech@leafe.com Subject: Re: [NF] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
Reading up on it it was sort of ahead of its time insofar as it was a simple interface that then generated BASIC code.
-- Alan Bourke alanpbourke (at) fastmail (dot) fm
On Wed, 6 Sep 2017, at 08:35 AM, Dave Crozier wrote:
It was completely crap Andy .... tried it once and then binned it..... but then again it was only a free marketing aid.
I stuck with the good old trilogy that you could do virtually anything with:
Wordstar Supercalc (or Visicalc) DBASE
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of AndyHC Sent: 05 September 2017 16:11 To: profox@leafe.com Subject: Re: [NF] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
On 05-Sep-17 12:01 PM, Alan Bourke wrote:
there was also a product called "The Last One" which said it would be the only programming product you would ever need.
Microsoft are still doing that.
<bg>
I often wondered what happened to 'The Last One' - I never met anyone who'd actually used it, possibly because the advertising was directed at PHBs.
[excessive quoting removed by server]
Well I suppose it's like any generated code in that respect - the FoxPro 2.6 screen builder output, or boilerplate C# produced by creating a new ASP.NET MVC project ...
There are keep-alive programs to achieve this. https://movemouse.codeplex.com/
From: Jean MAURICE jsm.maurice@wanadoo.fr To: profox@leafe.com Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 10:39 AM Subject: [OT] Re: [FW] Programming language life expectancy
These last few days, I am smiling when I read Profox : I thought I was the only 'Foxil' still working with Foxpro DOS (I have an app working on a Compaq PC that is 23 years old !) and I am an 'expert' of FORTRAN : when I was in university it was one the few languages available (with COBOL and a little later C).
I still work with FORTRAN : one of my client is EDF (French national Electricity Delivery). They where building simulations with 'R' (A new language easy to use but .... slow). As a test, I translate one of them to FORTRAN : running time went from 20 minutes to less than 3 seconds (on a multicore machine with FORTRAN MPI). Since then, I translate a lot and they began to build large simulations (one hour of FORTRAN !).
I have two drawbacks : - I can't 'teach' the new scientists that working with integer is a lot quicker than working with real numbers - the FORTRAN exe run in a 'dos window' within Windows XP and I have no access to the energy saver parameters. So, after 15 minutes, the PC goes to stand by mode because Windows is not able to detect that a 'DOS' exe is running. So I bought a 'rotating fan', fixed the mouse on it so it moves continously right and left and ... windows stay 'alive' !!
The Foxil
[excessive quoting removed by server]