[Info-vax] Learning VMS application programming

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2014-09-07 19:44, Paul Sture wrote:
> On 2014-09-07, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> Paul Sture wrote:
>>
>>> Since I just stated in another post that Fortan was the first HLL language
>>> available for VAX/VMS, was Bliss available to the public before it
>>> appeared on the Freeware CDs?
>>
>> Bliss was available on the PDP-11s.  But as with other compilers, you
>> had to purchase it.  Free came later.
>
> BTW I consulted the "VMS at 20" PDF and according to that both COBOL and
> BASIC PLUS 2 were available in 1978 for VMS V1.0.  I'm reasonably sure
> that that COBOL was a compatibility mode version, and generated
> compatibility mode code; it certainly wasn't mentioned as a viable route
> for us an alternative to FORTRAN.  The PDF VMS V1.0 entry differentiates
> Macro and FORTRAN from the above compilers with the prefix "VAX-11" thus:
>
> "VAX-11 MACRO generates native code" and "VAX-11 FORTRAN IV-PLUS"
>
> By 1981 the COBOL we had was still compatibility mode but produced VAX
> native code, IIRC.  Native COBOL came around VMS V3 for me, in 1982/3.

And I'm pretty sure the BASIC-PLUS-2 compiler was also compatibility 
mode. And I thought the FORTRAN IV PLUS compiler was compatibility mode 
as well.
But I might be wrong, as usual... :-)

	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