Conference clt::vax_basic

I know of no trivial way (recompile and go, no other work) to port a program (in
most languages, not just BASIC) that was not written intentionally to be ported.
However, in many cases it is relatively easy. In this case, I am not
sufficiently expert on BP2 to guarantee results, but I do know that the VAX
BASIC language was derived from BP2, and at the time, customers porting programs
from one to the other was important (much as we now often concern ourselves with
the migration from VAX to Alpha).

I have also just paged through the BASIC Pocket Reference Guide, which lists
features of VAX BASIC and BP2 (et alia), and I see very few features that BP2
has and VAX BASIC lacks. The major differences I see are that BP2 has its own
debugger, while VAX BASIC uses the VMS debugger, and some of the interactive
environment commands and compiler command-line qualifiers are different. The
actual differences in the language are few. (example: VAX BASIC does not have
the FSS$() function).

Does VEST (DECmigrate) deal with porting to VAX? I must have missed that while I
was away. I thought it was for moving from VAX to Alpha.

	:Karl.

    
    In 1981 I wrote a book called the BASIC Transportability Manual, which
    describes just these differences and how you go about working around
    them. Post an internal address and I'll be happy to send a copy.
    
    This book came with some translation software (TRAN and TRAN11) -- is
    there any chance these programs could be found in some forgotten corner
    of the BASIC development group?
    
    JP

    TO clarify .2 - The translators were designed to translate 
    BASIC-PLUS and BASIC-11 to BASIC-PLUS-2 or VAX BASIC.  There
    way enough difference between BASIC-PLUS and VAX BASIC that
    a translator was developed to aid uses convering.

    BASIC-PLUS-2 is *very* close to VAX BASIC.  A translator is not
    needed to convert one to the other.  As I recall the main problems
    people had were in differences in the platforms.  For example
    integers were 16 bits on PDP-11 and 32-bits on the VAX.  I think
    VAX BASIC has a compile qualifier to make it's integers 16-bits too
    
    
     From .0
    
>    will porting applications written in these languages from VAX to
>    Alpha be best done via DECmigrate (VEST) ?
    
    I don't understand this?  First, BASIC-PLUS-2 applications do no
    run on VAX, VAX BASIC applications do.  Are you trying to port
    from a PDP-11 and VAX to Alpha?  With Alpha there is yet another
    dialect - DEC BASIC.
    
    It seems that most users have had little difficulty in porting
    VAX BASIC to DEC BASIC.  It is my guess that it is easier
    to port BASIC-PLUS-2 to VAX BASIC than it is port VAX BASIC to
    DEC BASIC (in other words....it should be very easy).
    
    					Ed
    
    
    
    
    

    
    
    I realized after posting the last reply that porting from BP2 to
    VAX BASIC could be a problem if the BP2 code was running on the RSTS/E
    operating system and relied upon a lot of RSTS/E features (SYS calls
    etc.).  As John mentioned a few replies back, check the portability
    guide.  I bet it covers that stuff.
    
    					Ed
    
    

Yes, in fact, most of the differences I spotted in my scan of the Pocket
Reference Guide had to do with accessing code libraries, whether they be on
disk, or memory-resident. VMS does not structure itself that way.

Not a BASIC language issue, but still something the programmer will have to
respecify/redesign. It's just in the build procedure and program start-up rather
than in the guts of the code.

	:Karl.

I just stumbled on this while looking for something else.

The _VAX BASIC Reference Manual_, Appendix A is entitled "Transporting Programs
Between VAX BASIC and BASIC-PLUS-2". It is only 13 pages long because there's
not much to change.

	:Karl.