a brief history lesson from the stone age

In Ye Olden Days, we wrote code like this
      READ(5, 501) IA, IB, IC
  501 FORMAT (3I5)
      IF (IA) 777, 777, 701
  701 IF (IB) 777, 777, 702
  702 IF (IC) 777, 777, 703
  703 IF (IA+IB-IC) 777, 777, 704
  704 IF (IA+IC-IB) 777, 777, 705
  705 IF (IB+IC-IA) 777, 777, 799
  777 STOP 1
  799 S = FLOAT (IA + IB + IC) / 2.0
      AREA = SQRT( S * (S - FLOAT(IA)) * (S - FLOAT(IB)) *
     +     (S - FLOAT(IC)))
      WRITE (6, 601) IA, IB, IC, AREA
  601 FORMAT (4H A= ,I5,5H  B= ,I5,5H  C= ,I5,8H  AREA= ,F10.2,
     +        13H SQUARE UNITS)
      STOP
      END

£10 for anyone who can explain how and why this works and how to use it right this minute