Computer Centre Bulletin, Volume 5 Number 8&9, 4 September 1972
User Manual: Computer Centre Bulletin, Volume 5 Number 8&9, 4 September 1972
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UNIVERSITY OF
QUEENSLAND
COMPUTER CENTRE
COMPUTER
CENTRE
BULLETIN
Vol. 5 Nos 8 & 9
Editor:
4 September 1972
Sarah Barry
B5-8 & ~
26Aug72
(
ADDITIONAL CORE MEMORY FOR THE PDP-10
In its submission to the Australian Universities commission for
caf'ital tunds for com~uting, the University nominated additional
core storage as the item of highest vriority.
In anticiJ:.'ation of sU.i:>i-J0rt from the AUC, and to ensure the
earliest ~ossible installation should funds become available
early if! 1973, the Centre has ~laced a Letter of Intent for the
.t-'urchase of 64K words of 650 nsec core memory.
Although
confirmation or othervase of this intention will be known by ::lk:J
Set-t.ember, we are advising clients of this intention now as the
~i~ely
installation of significantly more core may
affect
clients' forwara ~~annin~.
une outcor.,e would be imiJroved terminal rest-0nse and batch turn
t.imes.
At t.he moment the PuP-lie:) is running at its limit
of 24 active jODS tor the greater l--art of its time.
The main
advanta~e
of more core will be that more jobs will reside in
cere, thereby redUCing swa~f,;ing overheads.
aroun~
It will als0 Le ):-ossible to increase the user's core limit, but
if t.ni ,j were increased substantially, the number of core resident
jOLS would Qecrease and swa):-~ing overheads would again increase •
... 01
this rea~un,
should the memory be installed, the maximum
li~ely increase in the user's core limit will only be to 32K.
DATA PREPA:{ATION WORK
Witb the recent reoryanization of
the
COIntluter
centre's
Secretary's ortice, many user-s are confused as to where data
):-Iel--aration worK is to be hanaed in or collected.
All data
.t-'ref--aration work should be collected from, or handed into, the
Receil--t/Dis):-atch window in the foyer of the centre, not at the
Enquiries window.
Data fJret->aration forms are available in the
Clients' room.
87
l.:.5-8 & '9
2G i-;w-j 12
Pl.iP-llll
FORTRA~
[WN-95]
1
DEFI~ITION
OF ARITHMETIC STATEMENT FUNCTIONS
'l'he Comi:Juter ~ent.re FOk'l'RAN manual MNT-5 does not state that the
definition of arithmetic statement functions should i:-'recede the
first executable statement in the ~rogram.
This omission will be
corrected with the next revision of the manual.
[WN-96]
2
DO LOOPS
The pr.esent version of the comf;iler does not create proper
when a function is used as one of a DO 100i:J's indices.
example:
DO 2830 J=l
code
,MIN~(b,NN)
~o diagnostic message
is i:-'roduced during compilation but an
improper relocatable binary file is produced, and during loading
the message
'!
ILL.
l' ORMAT
BLOCK TYPE NNN PROG. name 1 FILE name ~/REL
will ue procuced.
This error has been remedied in a
later
version of
the compiler but until this version is adopted, this
construction sbould be avoided.
3
UNARY MINUSES
Use of the unary minuses in logical eXi:Jressions or mixed logical
and arithmetic eXi:Jressions do not always produce the correct
results, tOL example,
J = ( J 1 • f'.N D... 777 ) • OR. ( ( - ( N+ 1 ) ) • AN lJ ... 7 7 7 0 010 )
J=(Jl.ANlJ. "777)+( (-(1'-<+1)) .ANlJ."77700flJ)
'l'his has been corrected in a later version of the compiler which
will be imi:-'lemented in due course.
Until it is available, it is
suggested that this construction should not be used and that the
expression be split into two as;
JJ=-(N+l )
J =(J 1 • AN D... 77 7 ) • OR • ( J J • AN D... 7 7 7 0 flJ 0 )
88
B5-8 & 9
26Aug72
(
PDPUN
[WN-99]
~DPUN may not correctly
than the first of a
identification.
~unch
the identification code of other
series of Fortran files with supplied
T'his f..'roblem will be corrected in the near future.
ALGOL V2
[WN-94]
Version 2 of the Algol system does not allow the use of external
FORTRAN sUb~rograms.
This feature is discussed in various
manuals, and information from Digital indicates that
this
facility will be available with version 3.
COBOL V3 ERROR
[WN-94]
In use of the sort features of Cobol, it af.Jpears that under some
circumstanced wrong code is created by a Return statement of the
form
RETURN filename INTO identifier •
':"his can be uvercome by omitting the INTO option, but achieving
the same effect by moving the data to the required destination
after the keturn.
OUTSTANDING PROBLEMS IN COBOL V3
[WN-96]
The following note, J:-,re~ared on 3 July 1972, gives a summary of
known ~roblem areas with Cobol. The large majority of these are
corrected by patches issued by Digital and these will be
89
BS-8 & 9
.::.6Aug72
incor~orated
as effort becomes available.
THE COBOL COMPILER
(a)
'l'his version does not allow qualification of condition names
(to be corrected with version 3A).
(b)
"RETURN namel INTO name2" as part of a sort
(patch exists).
(c)
Comparison for equality of 6-character display-6 fields
not give correct results (patch exists).
may
(d)
Some external references from non-resident segments are
set u~ pro~erly. The reported situations were
SORT verb in resident code
RETURN and/or RELEASE in non-resident
TALLY in examine generator
TOD1,Y in the USING generator
Size error and display of a COMP-l variable
(patches exist).
not
(e)
"MULTIPLY namel BY fraction GIVING name2" where fraction is
less than 1.0, e.g. 0.0125; will return the value zero to
name2 in some Circumstances, depending on the typing of
namel and name2 (patch exists).
(f)
A ~,.l.meric literal in a "VALUE OF DATE WRITTEN" clause
(patch exists).
(g)
The com~iler allows a quoted literal for a
PROGRAM-ID, but
if the literal is less than 6 characters, the remainder of
the name is random (patch exists).
(h)
The COlh}iiler does not successfully
restart
catastrOf\he dump if it was using a command file.
(i)
l'he compiler will not accept lower case for the first
character of a reserved word, although lower case characters
are sat;isfactory in all other l;Jositions (a patch to allow
the first character to be lower case exists).
(j)
Under seme Circumstances, a spurious
warning
message
"REDEFINITON NOT THE SAME SIZE AS REDEFINED ITEM" may be
given.
This can occur when the two fields occupy an
integral number of words (patch exists).
(k)
Under some Circumstances, Cobol comfiiler tables are not
expanded correctly.
This error may manifest itself as
compilation or execution error for
which
no
simfile
90
does
not
work
fails
after
a
- - - ,
-
~
-----
~
--'----,
B5-8 & 9
26Aug72
ex~lanation
such as
this~
may be found.
A patch e~ists for one situation
but at least one other may exist.
(1)
"PP,RITY IS EVEN" does not compile properly (patch exists) ~
(m)
Improper line numbers are given for the
map (patch exists).
(n)
Compilation using the
switch will produce a
dump if .. TRACE Ol'il/OFF" is used (pa tch~ exi sts) •
(0 )
It appears as if
construction "OCCURS nl
TO n2
TIMES
DEPENDING ON namel will not create an output record of the
size s~ecified by narnel but rather the maximum size n2.
2
'I'HE COBOL EXECUTION PACKAGE -
(a)
When a random file is opened for output only, any attempt to
write to it will terminate the run with an error message "IT
IS ILLf.GAL TO CHANGE ThE RECORD SIZE WHEN THE ACCESS MODE IS
RANDOM
(patch exists).
(b)
When a Cobol ~rogram attempts to of>en two files which share
trIa same butter area theb"esultant error message is garbled
(pOl tch exists)
procedure
IF
division
catastrophe
LIBOL
0
(c)
When an 10 file encounters an EOF% a data
reE,-=t, ,,.;rith the result that the next sequential file
location
input
is
will
not
fail
(patch exists).
(d)
Multi--file magnetic tapes arE! not positioned prof,.'erly (patch
exists) •
(e )
Some advi:->urv messc!ges
not conform to the specifications
for uigitald~ ~ series monitors (patch exists).
(f)
10 access to an indexed sixbit file will fail at
read (~atch exists).
(g)
Code created for "USE AF'rER ERROR"
(pa tch exi sts) •
(h)
File record areas are improperly cleared
circumstances when adjacent files are opened.
(i)
Some
tor~
(j)
o~er
examf.Jle
9
procedure
the
is
first
incorrect
under
some
cheCKS are made when error situations arise,
when a f i
is not found (some patches exi st) •
Under some circumstances the wrong quantity is used to
calculate record size when a blocking factor is specified.
91
BS-8 & 9
:O::6Aug'l :.:.:
This will cause an undeserved
(patch exists).
error
message
at
execution
(k)
o~en immediately after close on magnetic tape
exists) •
(1)
Sort of an indexed file may fail (patch exists).
(m)
Some problems
ASCII
key
circumstances
closed (patch
(n)
under some circumstances, there may be an interaction
between sort and the use of indexed files which will cause
the program to fail (patch exists).
(0)
"NEX'r GROUP NEXT PAGE" may cause the output of a blank
(patch exists).
,f)age
(f.')
An EOF is found when attempting
sequentially (patch exists).
file
(q ).
A sort which reads a file created by the
get an error (patch exists).
(r)
When a null record is found in a random file,
in,k-'uts or outputs may fail (patch exists).
3
THE SORT PACKAGE
(a)
Under some circumstances, a command
(patch exists).
'*
fails
(~atch
exist with indexed files, e.g. the size of an
is
incorrectly
computed
and under some
the channel used for the index tile is not
exists) •
to
read
file
an
indexed
program
same
is
not
may
subsequent
accepted
RERUN
Rerun has several problems, some of which are related to the
version of the operating system currently being used and it is
doubtful if satisfactory results will be achieved. A number of
patches exist and when these have been incorporated consideration
will be given to further testing.
5
ISAM
The Isam utility has some problems in handling ASCII input files
and in conversion from ASCII to sixbit files (patches exist).
92
B5-8 & 9
26Aug72
(
6
b.l
GENERAL
Su~plement
to Digital's Cobol Manual
Attention is drawn to a note in Volume XII no 5 of the
DECSYSTEM10 Bulletin which states that a supplement to the cobol
manual is now available. This supplement describes ISAM, COBDDT,
and COBOL table handling and is available on request from
Digital.
6.2
Factors Affecting the Size of a Compilation
In response to a query regarding the size of the largest program
that can be com~iled within the present core limits, the
following suggestions were offered by Digital.
(a)
Identifiers longer than
additional storage.
6
characters
in
length
(b)
Condition names (level 88) should be avoided
(c)
Keep paragraph names (number and size) to a minimum
(d)
Do not use values as data items
(e)
Keep literals as short as possible
(f)
Avoid ALTERs
(g)
~o
require
not use the report writer
It is not likely that great advantage can be taken of these
suggestions, but it is worth noting that version 3 of Cobol has
fJroved to be able to compile substantially longer source progr3ms
than any of its ~redecessors.
b.3
Recoml-'ilation of Existing programs
A note in the DECSYSTEM10 Bulleting on April 1 1972 indicates the
next release of Cobol will retain the existing version of the
execution time package for those programs that presently use it.
Programs com~iled with later versions of Cobol will compile a
version of Libol identified by its version number. In this way.
eXisting
compiled
programs
will continue to run without
recompilation.
It is, however, recommended
that
programs
~reviously
compiled with versions earlier than version 3 be
recom};)iled.
93
B5-8 & 9
~6Aug72
NEW COMMAND DECODER
[WN-95 ]
A new version of
the command decoder (version 2E(36)-3) was
on the PDP-l 0 on Wednesday 12 July. A number of
important changes were made with this decoder.
The changes
documented
in
section
1
and
2
below, foreshadow the
implementation of a general program library and extended command
capabili ty.
im~lemented
Director ie s
Library oirectories on the PDP-10 were renamed and in some cases
there was some reorganization of the actual files contained on
these areas.
Libr~ry directories are referenced by name,
e.g.
PLOT, STATS,
The names are not preceded by a dollar sign; a dollar
MATRIX.
sign is used to indicate a device or pseudo device, e.g.
$DSK,
$I>SR.
User directories are referenced by the project number of the area
belonging to that user, e.g. 279, 531.
Files from any directory can be
directory nan,e and the filename
obtained
by
referencing
the
For exan.t-'le:
(i)
(ii)
RUN l>'lYPROG PLOT.CALCMP(LIB)
runs the file MYPROG (understood to be on the user's own
directory) with the library file CALCMP from the PLOT
directory.
STATS.bMD~~R
executes the f-rogram BMD02R on the STATS directory.
(iii)
COpy TUTOR.MYPROG/F4 TO=374.MYPROG/F4
cOt"ie£ the FORTRAN J:-'rogram l-lYPROG from the TUTOR directory
onto t"roject area J74.
on the 12 July, the old library directories ($BMD,
$MATH,
$MATRIX, $LEARN, $PLOT, $STATS) were removed and reorganized and
t.he new directories are as follows:
.uirectory File;:;
GAMES
contents
CliESS/Sr\V
.L.JOTS/SAV
94
B5-8 & 9
26Aug72
ELIZA/SAV
LUNAR/BAS
MOO/SAV
NIM/SAV
QED/SAV
These were all removed from
directory to GAMES.
hELP
HELP/,aLP
MANUAL/HLP
NE1.
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