[Info-vax] Whither VMS?

[P. Sture]

In article <7j97blF34f1s1U11 at mid.individual.net>,
 Bob Eager <rde42 at spamcop.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:03:30 +0200, P. Sture wrote:

<snip>
 
> > But this brings us to the price of compilers. Most of my customers in
> > the VAX era had a COBOL compiler and that was it. Wrong tool or not,
> > COBOL did get used for systems programming on occasion (and yours truly
> > did it, though only for low volumes of data).
> 
> I was always amazed at the amount of stuff written in FORTRAN. I used 
> something for monitoring users' terminals, and that was in FORTRAN.

FORTRAN was the first HLL compiler offered on the VAX and in early days 
the only one.  We were in the market for a new system at the time and 
that ruled the VAX out for us; we wanted a COBOL capable system.

What VAX FORTRAN did offer was the header files for calling system 
services, although these were an option (IIRC still are?) on 
installation (curses all round if someone had said NO to that option).

VAX-BASIC was also very popular, especially with folks coming from RSTS. 
That also came with system header files.

COBOL never did come with system header files. Indeed the early COBOL 
compilers for VAX only supported passing by reference, so calling system 
services which required parameters passed by descriptor was "impossible".
Yes you could build your own, but that came later - it was easier to 
write a Macro wrapper.

-- 
Paul Sture