[Info-vax] VMS Basic and quad by value

[Neil Rieck]

On Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 7:04:26 PM UTC-4, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 9/24/2022 6:23 AM, Neil Rieck wrote: 
> > On Friday, September 23, 2022 at 4:37:44 PM UTC-4, Arne Vajhøj 
> > wrote: 
> >> I am not good at Basic so I may be missing something obvious. 
> >> 
> >> As I read the manual then I should be able to pass a quad by 
> >> value. 
> >> 
> >> But the compiler disagrees. 
> >> 
> >> Can anybody shed some light on this? 
> >
> > I have written "a lot" of BASIC programs for VMS and OpenVMS systems 
> > since 1987 and published many demos here: 
> > https://neilrieck.net/demo_vms_html/openvms_demo_index.html and have 
> > saved some recent BASIC manuals here: 
> > https://neilrieck.net/misc/pdf/vms-docs/ 
> > 
> > IIRC, the QUAD data type was added to BASIC for the port from VAX to 
> > Alpha and it appears that it was not implemented fully or properly 
> > tested by Compaq. To make matters worse, many broken items were not 
> > fixed by HP for the port to Itanium. Some of the problems with 
> > BASIC-1.7 (see first link) were fixed by HP then sent to me as 
> > private patches but were never put into production for other 
> > customers. As I understand it, all my problems with the compiler and 
> > BASRTL have all been fixed in the VSI branded products so customers 
> > still working in the OpenVMS ecosystem need to move to VSI ASAP.
> I am testing with VSI Basic 1.8. 
> 
> I will just conclude that quad by value is not supported 
> for now. 
> 
> Arne

Quick question about VSI BASIC 1.8

Could you verify if the QUAD and DECIMAL bugs I flagged here in BASIC 1.7 are fixed?
https://neilrieck.net/demo_vms_html/openvms_demo_index.html#basic-compiler-bugs

Also, please declare an array of QUAD then attempt to zero it (or do anything else) using one of the MAT commands.

Thanks

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net