[Info-vax] DEC BASIC: How to read a sequential

[Neil Rieck]

On Apr 15, 12:18 am, David Froble <da... at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> Neil Rieck wrote:
> > On Apr 13, 8:41 am, StGallen <sengupta.su... at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> All,
> >> DEC Basic 1.3. VMS 7.3.2
>
> >> I need to open a sequential file with variable record length. How can
> >> I do this, especially since I cannot define the size of the STRINGS in
> >> the MAP file?
>
> >> Also if I open the file without a MAP file, how do I read the records
> >> from the file?
>
> >> Any help deeply appreciated.
>
> >> Many thanks!
>
> > A number of years ago (the  early 1980s) the corporate IT people at my
> > employers company mandated that all code not written by the white coat
> > boys would be done in BASIC (we were never told the reasons so
> > conspiracy theories were many). We were on PDP so were forced to use
> > BASIC2+. Since then I've personally lived through VAX-BASIC which was
> > later renamed  "DEC-BASIC for VAX" and "DEC-BASIC for Alpha". I've
> > also lived through various changes from VAX-BASIC to DEC-BASIC to
> > Compaq-BASIC to HP-BASIC. That said, this demo should work for you;
>
> >http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/demo_vms_html/bas_rms_sequential_dem...
>
> > Neil Rieck
> > Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
> > Ontario, Canada.
> >http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/
>
> What !!!
>
> No Basic+ ???

No, but I do remember one flavor of BASIC (I forget the actual product
name) which ran on RT-11. What a pain. You needed to buy a license to
do indexed RMS operations. And when memory got tight, you needed to
resort to overlays. All that stuff went away with VMS.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/