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From: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU.UUCP
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Subject: VMS Fortran
Message-ID: <[MX.LCS.MIT.EDU].931527.860706.KFL>
Date: Sun, 6-Jul-86 13:48:36 EDT
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Posted: Sun Jul  6 13:48:36 1986
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    From:     "William J. Bogstad" <bogstad@hopkins-eecs-bravo.ARPA>

            Unfortunately that was the only time in my use of VMS that
    I had to "escape" from the confines of the Fortran 77 standard and
    I am left without another good example to support my opinion.

  There are many examples.  When I was working heavily with VMS, every
time I needed to do something more sophisticated than a Farenheit to
Celcius conversion I would have to talk to a Wizard, who would tell me
all about how to use SYS$QIOW and MTH$KLUDGE and all about how you need
pointers to pointers to H format quadwords.  When I asked why it was so
complicated and so unFortranish I was told it was my own fault for not
using Assembler.
  For instance:

1) Trying to do one character keyboard input.

2) Trying to read a file with a ^Z in it.

3) Trying to do DCL commands from within my program.

4) Trying to send a message to other terminals.

5) Doing anything with the clock.

6) Setting or reading file protections.

  I now mostly use PC-DOS and find it much more usable than VMS.

								...Keith