From: bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor)
Subject: Re: Robustness of MS Fortran 5.x & Vax extensions?
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 12:19:59 GMT

In article <Bu1CF5.HqL@news.cso.uiuc.edu> btbg1194@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Bradley T Banko) writes:
>I am starting on a project to convert some several thousand line 
>RSX11/VMS Vax Fortran programs to run on a PC, and I am planning to
>use MS Fortran 5.1.  I would  appreciate comments about MSF 5.x's
>robustness in dealing with Vax code... including special types like
>"BYTE" and out of order DATA/COMMON statements.
>
>Any comments are welcome.  Thanks.
>
>Brad Banko
>b-banko@uiuc.edu
>
>
>-- 
>Brad Banko;  Dept of Physics;  U of Illinois;  b-banko@uiuc.edu, KB8CNE
>=========================================================================
>	Tatiana Gutsu for President!


Here is the list of MS-FORTRAN 5.0 VAX and IBM extensions. This is
from my manual:

Microsoft Fortran includes many (but not all) VAX extensions, which
are listed below:

* 31 character names
* ACCESS selector 'APPEND' in the OPEN statements
* allowing integer arrays to contain FORMAT statements
* BLOCKSIZE and NML I/O keywords
* Debug comment lines
* DO statements without specified labels
* DO WHILE statement
* END DO statement
* EQUIVALENCE of character and noncharacter items
* EQUIVALENCE to a multi-dimensioned array with only one subscript
* exponentiation of REAL and COMPLEX statements
* IMPLICIT NONE
* INCLUDE compiler directive
* Initialization on the declaration line
* In-line comments
* Length specification within the FUNCTION statement
* Length specifications within type declarations
* Mixing of character and noncharacter items in COMMON statements
* Noninteger alternate return values
* Noninteger array subscripts
* Numeric operands for .AND., .OR. etc.
* Specified common-block variables in DATA statements outside a BLOCK
  DATA subroutine
* STRUCTURE, UNION, MAP statements
* UP to 99 continuation lines
* Use of dollar sign ($) in names
*.XOR. operator


MS-Fortran includes all IBM SAA extensions which are listed below:

* 31-character names
* Bit-manipulation intrinsic
* Case-insensitive source
* COMMON allows character and noncharacted in same block
* CONJG, HFIX and IMAG intrinsic functions
* Data initialization in type statements
* EQUIVALENCE allows association of character and noncharacter
* Functions IOR, IAND, NOT, IEOR, ISHFT, BTEST, IBTEST, and IBCLR
* IMPLICIT NONE
* INCLUDE compiler directive
* INTEGER*2, COMPLEX*16, and LOGICAL*1 data types
* optional length specifications in INTEGER, REAL, COMPLEX, and LOGICAL
  type statements
* Use of underscore (_) in names
* Z edit descriptor

----------------------------- end list ------------------------

I have been working with MS-FORTRAN 5.0 for few years and has
been quite satisfied. With the HUGE memory model you can have 
arrays which are bigger than 64K. I have been working with it 
under OS/2 (it works under both MS-DOS and OS/2) on a large
fluid dynamics code. 

Under MS-DOS you have of course the 640 limit, but under OS/2
you can address at least 16MB ( depends on the version) 

The main problem with the compiler is that it is only a 16-bit
and therefore is much slower than 32-bit compilers. 

Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran