[Info-vax] completion status from LIB$SPAWN

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2012-04-29 22:49, Jan-Erik Soderholm wrote:
> Johnny Billquist wrote 2012-04-29 21:40:
>> On 2012-04-29 20:48, David Froble wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>> Back in VMS V1, basically everything was running in compatibility mode,
>> FORTRAN included. And you still used RSX tools in general.
>> One by one, VMS versions were developed of everything.
>>
>> As for PDP-11 compatibility mode in hardware, that existed in every
>> machine
>> until the VAX 8600 (and 8650). After that, it was all done in software.
>>
>> Johnny
>>
>
> I had the impression that it was all VAX 11/xxx modells (that had HW
> PDP-11 support), or is that a too simple answer ? :-)

Depends on your view. :-)
The VAX 8600 was originally planned to be called the VAX-11/790, but the 
name changed before launch.

But apart from the 86x0 machines, it's only the VAX-11/7xx which have 
PDP-11 compatibility in hardware, yes.

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol