[Info-vax] completion status from LIB$SPAWN

[David Froble]

Paul Sture wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:09:41 +0000, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> 
>> Paul Sture <paul at sture.ch> wrote:
>>
>> (snip)
>>> There's also the history of compilers to consider.  In my experience
>>> many commercial users (as opposed to scientific or academic users) who
>>> came to VAX/VMS in the early 1980s fell into 2 main camps:
>>> a) those who came from PDPs or other minis where BASIC was very popular
>>> b) those who came from more traditional mainframes where COBOL was
>>>   pretty much king for business applications (IBM also had PL/I users
>>>   in this sector).
>> And scientific users, mostly using Fortran.
>>
> 
> Yes, and FORTRAN was the only HLL available for VMS when it first became 
> available to ordinary customers.  Was the earliest FORTRAN-IV?  I did 
> have that available on VMS at the end of 1980 (and was very glad for 
> business usage when FORTRAN-77 came along with character variables among 
> other new features).
> 

With the introduction of the Vax 11/780 in 1978 the initial target was scientific users. 
Back at that time, that was a large market for DEC.

Later, Basic Plus 2 was released on the 11/780 using PDP-11 compatibility mode.  Several 
of the early systems had the PDP-11 compatibility mode, 11/750 and 11/730, and perhaps a 
few more.  It worked, but, it was PDP-11 compatibility mode, with the addressing 
limitations, and still used the dreaded TKB and overlays.

One of the interesting things that appeared was ROSS-V, an implementation of the RSTS/E 
environment on VMS.  Worked rather well.  The main reason for ROSS-V was the poor 
environment on VMS for people with applications on RSTS/E.  I cannot remember the 
individual from I believe Seattle who commissioned the product, but John Santos of EG&H 
did most or all of the implementation.

Later on many languages were implemented on VMS, most using the common VMS calling 
standard, and life was good.  Well, except for C, which didn't play well with the rest. 
VAX-Basic was a joy after the addressing limitations of the PDP-11.