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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The joy of FORTRAN
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2024 01:36:57 -0000 (UTC)
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On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 18:01:25 -0700, Lars Poulsen wrote:

> On 26/09/2024 13:43, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 11:49:37 +0100, Pancho wrote:
>> 
>>> On 9/26/24 11:10, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 08:42:32 +0100, Pancho wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ... a bitch to work out how to call Vax C from Vax Pascal, or vice
>>>>> versa.
>>>>
>>>> Why would it be that hard? VAX C passed everything by value, while
>>>> Pascal let you specify descriptors, references, immediate value ...
>>>> all the options.
>>>
>>> There ware decisions to be made, like what order do you push variables
>>> onto the stack, when do you push the return address, how to interpret
>>> a Pascal String in C.
>> 
>> All these things were standardized in the VAX/VMS ABI, right from the
>> beginning.
> 
> IIRC, VAX C did not completely follow the standard calling conventions,
> which created some issues in mixed-language applications.

Being C, you had to explicitly write code to follow those conventions,
but the conventions were well-known. Looks like, unlike Pascal, DEC
did not add convenience built-in functions to help you construct the
right descriptors etc: you had to define these yourself.

See “Programming in VAX C 1.0”, chapter 9, “Mixed-Language
Programming”
<https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/lang/c/AA-L370A-TE_Programming_in_VAX_C_1.0_198205.pdf>.