Happy 7-8-9!

Good questions. I always remember that my grandmother had gorgeous cursive handwriting, and prided herself on her lovely signature. OTOH, ny father's mother had horrid hand-writing.

WRT now, I think it likely depends on the school system. But, I see a lot of girls still with the big, clear, rounded printed - can't say much for the hand-writing. My DB's writing is so seriously bad that he has had checks bounced for the signature, or other illegibility. We always pitied his secretaries, and so for years he's really gone to just dictation.

Ellice

I doubt that a PC could support FORTRAN. I have, however, run G Basic on my PC. Jim.

I just don't know about some of the configurations. But, certainly, I think the ability to run FORTRAN, and similar programming languages at a desktop certainly inspired the development of the SUN, SGI, & HP workstations, as well as the more powerful Macs. For years I just kept a Mac at my desk, and used it for everything. The secretaries had more basic Macs for doing word processing, database and graphics stuff. Then, at my 2nd office, had a Mac and an SGI machine. Could do great computational work with the SGI. At the HQ office, a Mac, and a PC - which had to be used for some specific internal contracts type stuff.

So, I guess if the point is can you compile FORTRAN on a desktop machine, that's certainly true, though I wouldn't say how usual. IME it's pretty common for science/engineering types still to front-end with a desktop machine - albeit not a typical PC windows type machine as much as either a Mac if doing local compliling, or Workstation like the SGI Irix for the graphics results. The workstations are awesome for the graphics processing of science apps. And for the movie industry.

It's all pretty interesting. I still remember being in some engineering survey class I had to take, and a guy giving a lecture about computers, showing photos of little, teeny, magnets flipping up & down (literally showing a computer doing it's 0-1 thing). While, honestly, I did get As in my Electrical Engineering classes (only 2) I still think it's all magic.

Ellice

There are umpteen Fortran compilers (& interpreters!) for PCs. For example or just Google for "fortran compilers"

Hey, did you read the Baltimore paper today? (Actually, maybe you did, because they share writers with the Washington Post.)

Front-page story:

Sue

Hadn't read it yet. We actually stopped our daily Wash Post, as an economy matter. But, I'm debating getting it back, or just the NY Times for the weekends. It is a timely article. In the meantime I've spent much of the day working on this stupid loan modification package and now the DH came home from softball - his own doubleheader, then subbing for another team, he could sign where needed and I'm faxing the 41 page document. The auto-feeder only takes 30 pages, so I'm watching the feeder and gently adding groups of pages!

Ack. Plus, planning a lovely weekend in NJ - way up in "Hope" - for his aunt's 90th B-day. Just heard from the cousins that the horrible SILs are coming. He hasn't spoken to the better (read this selfish, mean, owes us money but not crazy) one for a few months. She's evidently driving up somehow and picking up the worse (crazy, very doubly mean, won't take her meds, socially awkward, paranoid, alcoholic) one at the airport. And they're staying at the lovely Inn where we stayed 2 years ago. So, I don't think I can deal with being in the same lovely little inn, plus - they told us at least $225 to $245 for a room for one night (but they do take the dog), including breakfast. It's only a few miles from the party. Otherwise, it's been checking the web shopping for deals about 12-15 mi away - which are about $90, and some will take the dog. What to do. Oh, for the curious - link to the inn: