Purely historic question: VT200 text graphic programming

[GrayShark]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:17:08 +0200, Anssi Saari wrote:

> Grant Edwards <invalid at invalid.invalid> writes:
> 
>> C wasn't very widely used under VMS, and VMS had it's own screen
>> formatting and form handling libraries.
> 
> Just curious, what language was widely used in VMS? My VMS experience is
> limited to running Maple for a math course in the university in early
> 1990s. Didn't know how to do much more than start Maple, probably just
> dir, logout (or was it logoff?) and ftp :)

I used Fortran and C. Pascal was pretty popular then as was BASIC; likely 
included. I know there was an Ada compiler as well; required by DOD, as it 
was the 'language of choice'.

Some days the DOD is just foolish, dictating what must work better on 
hardware. Sort of like the need to push Java or C-Sharp on everything. Ada 
always reminded me of Cobol. Oh yes, Cobol also worked on VMS (yikes! the 
columns just right issues!).

I remember a Properties officer, upset that I wanted pricing data included 
in the printout. Adding that was beyond the 132 character output of the 
page. She seemed quite upset when I asked just for the 4 of 18 columns I 
was interested in, be printed. By 1998, Cobol programs were rare (although 
the language was pretty easy to learn).

So: Fortran, C, Pascal, Cobol, Ada and ... APL. Let's see how many 
remember that very fun language (and I mean fun).

GrayShark