Talk:VSI BASIC for OpenVMS

message: Hm. A quick search at HP's and Agilent's sites gives some hits on "HP BASIC", such as HP BASIC for Windows (HP) and E2045C HP BASIC/UX for S/700 Workstations (Agilent). The latter document states, among other things, that the BASIC covered is "Compatible with other HP BASIC platforms" -- which I'd guess means the DEC-inherited ones. I wonder if Compaq/HP built in such compatibility of their own BASIC with DEC's after acquiring DEC, or if DEC itself developed the compatibility as part of the continuing evolution of their BASIC on various platforms.
My question becomes: should we cover all of them in one article, HP BASIC, or perhaps in two, HP BASIC and VAX BASIC? The latter would be the best if the DEC-originated BASICs aren't directly related to the HP ones.
--Wernher 19:56, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, BASIC-11 was an interpreter program that was run (like many other interpreter programs executed from a command line).  From RT-11 you would  .R BASIC and it would "look" like BASIC-PLUS (Ready, New-or-Old:), but there is pretty much where the similarity ends.  You write your code, type save,  and when your done you say: system (I probably still  have a copy laying around).  Check current information in Talk:BASIC-PLUS and below for more on BASIC-PLUS. Bbump 05:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disentangling HP BASIC

message: Honestly, I think the sample code section is far, far too large for a Wikipedia article (although, by all means, it gives a nice overview of the language). Perhaps the contributor who added the sample, or someone else, could find a reasonably sized alternative.
--Wernher 18:06, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sample code 'stub' size

message: There seem to be a lot of erroneous references to RSTS/E in regard to BASIC-PLUS.  As I understand and remember it, BASIC-PLUS ran on RSTS-11.  We had a PDP-11/35 running RSTS-11 version 4B, with BASIC-PLUS, then later upgraded to a version 7, at which point it was RSTS/E, and BASIC-PLUS2.  I believe that RSTS became RSTS/E at version 5 (which, of course, we skipped), and I really don't know when BASIC-PLUS2 came in; perhaps early RSTS/E's also ran BASIC-PLUS.  The key difference with RSTS/E vs. RSTS-11 was that RSTS/E introduced virtual memory, so the statements in the article about how much virtual memory BASIC-PLUS programs had available is meaningless in the earlier RSTS-11 versions.  We most definitely had no virtual memory, just 32K of physical memory, of which, between RSTS and BASIC-PLUS, 25K was used up by the system, leaving only 7K available for your basic program, and *that* had to be swapped between different jobs.  I'm going to try to touch up the article, but someone who knows the details a little better than I will probably do a better job.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.73 (talk) 00:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Mish-mash about RSTS/E

message: There is a second, parallel article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC-PLUS
Sputnik2008 (talk) 15:07, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Parallel article

message: Back in 2014 before HP split into HP and HPE, HP sold the rights to maintain/develop OpenVMS software to a new company named VSI (VMS Software Inc). For a few years there existed a parallel effort by both VSI and HPE to support OpenVMS products but this all changed in 2018 when HPE announced that they would be exiting all OpenVMS business by the end of 2020. Since OpenVMS licenses from HP/HPE are not valid in the VSI ecosystem, it should surprise no one that VSI renamed all their OpenVMS products, including "HP-BASIC for OpenVMS" which is now known as "VSI BASIC for OpenVMS". ( https://www.vmssoftware.com/docs/VSI_OpenVMS_layered_products/VSI_basic_spd.pdf ). 
HISTORY: this product began life on PDP-11 as BASIC-Plus but was renamed VAX BASIC when DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) ported it from their 16-bit PDP (OS: RSX-11M) to the 32-bit VAX (OS: VMS). Around this time, a considerable amount of stuff was added to VAX BASIC making it more of BASIC with FORTRAN and COBOL extensions so I think a good case could be made for (possibly) having two Wikipedia articles. VAX BASIC didn't change as much when DEC moved it again to the 64-bit Alpha (this was around the time that "32-bit only" VMS became 64-bit OpenVMS). At that time, VAX BASIC was relabeled (for marketing and licensing pruposes) to "DEC-BASIC for VAX" and "DEC-BASIC for Alpha". Compaq purchased DEC in 1998 which meant that this language, including all the others, got a new name change: "DEC" was replaced with "Compaq". HP and Compaq merged in 2002 which meant product prefixes changed once again. "HP-BASIC for OpenVMS" went through a major cleanup in 2005 while preparing it for release on OpenVMS Itanium but hardly any new features were added other than support for 64-bit integers (QUAD).
Since all the BASIC products after PDP-11 could only run on VMS or OpenVMS, "I think" a good case could be made for this article being relabeled VMS-BASIC. 
Neilrieck (talk) 11:36, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Was there a product called VMS-BASIC?  At the moment the name is confusing when looking at categories and expecting to find something like DECBASIC, VAXBASIC or BASIC-PLUS and HP BASIC etc whatevs et al completely doesn't register...  Still, I guess at least it continues in the fine tradition of DEC marketing! --Vometia (talk) 13:06, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  This BASIC gets another name change?