FORM (computer algebra system)

[Grey Havoc]

Via Slashdot:

Crucial Computer Program for Particle Physics at Risk of Obsolescence | Quanta Magazine

Maintenance of the software that’s used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.

www.quantamagazine.org

FORM got its start in the mid-1980s, when the role of computers was changing rapidly. Its predecessor, a program called Schoonschip created by Martinus Veltman, was released as a specialized chip that you plugged into the side of an Atari computer. Vermaseren wanted to make a more accessible program that could be downloaded by universities around the world. He began to program it in the computer language FORTRAN, which stands for Formula Translation. The name FORM was a riff on that. (He later switched to a programming language called C.) Vermaseren released his software in 1989. By the early ’90s, over 200 institutions around the world had downloaded it, and the number kept climbing.

 

[TomcatViP]

Well, I still can do Fortran myself... And I am not that old!

 

[1635yankee]

Fortran forever!

I have done a lot of Fortran. I won't say "if you can do it in C[or C++ or whatever], I can do it in Fortran," but I did write a database engine in Fortran....