"... hardware sales motion meant that you were paying through the teeth for compilers..."
For Fortran? My memory is hazy but at NASA NAS a bunch of us were using gcc/g++ starting ~1990. g++ was... an adventure. Building my own (fine!) compiler for free(!) got me hooked on OSS to the point that when Linux/FreeBSD launched I jumped in as fast as I could.
I really loved my various SGI boxen. Magical times. I was a NASA "manager" so had the Macintosh "manager" interface box that I solved by keeping it turned off.
For Fortran? My memory is hazy but at NASA NAS a bunch of us were using gcc/g++ starting ~1990. g++ was... an adventure. Building my own (fine!) compiler for free(!) got me hooked on OSS to the point that when Linux/FreeBSD launched I jumped in as fast as I could.
I really loved my various SGI boxen. Magical times. I was a NASA "manager" so had the Macintosh "manager" interface box that I solved by keeping it turned off.