The FORTRAN Language

The FORTRAN language was intended to be a vehicle for expressing scientific and mathematical computation, while allowing efficient object code to be produced. Since there was an emphasis on scientific computation in FORTRAN and FORTRAN II, little provision was made for heterogeneous data structures. Only arrays of up to three dimensions were possible, and they had to be declared explicitly: DIMENSION ALPHA (10,15), BETA (12) Input and output statements allowed a little more flexibility, in that provision was made for controlling the format of information read from or written to the outside world (as opposed to reading or writing binary information on disk or tape): WRITE (5,200) MTH, BETA, Y 200FORMAT (6H MONTH, 13, 8H; QUOTAS, 12F4.0, 10H; FORECAST, F 6.2 )