[Info-vax] Removing the leading $ from commands in a new DCL language

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> seasoned_geek wrote:
 
(snip)

>> At any rate, some of the places I worked actually had a standard of
>> placing the & in column 72 (there was some specific reason they chose
>> 72, perhaps because it matched the old COBOL card reader input stuff,
>> I just don't remember). One thing was certain though. In an 80 column
>> continuous form print out you could easily see the line breaks.
 
> Stop hitting me, it seemed like a good idea at the time ....

The IBM 704, where Fortran originated, read a card row into two 36
bit words. Columns 73-80 were ignored.  That led to Fortran 
ignoring 73-80, and it propagated from there.

The IBM OS/360 assemblers use column 72 as continuation.
Early JCL did, too, but then they figured out how to do without
a continuation character. (If you end with a comma, you can
continue on the next line without a problem.)

-- glen