[VAX82A.SAO]AAAREADME.TXT

                               SAO Contributions

                                 coordinated by

                                  Roger Hauck
                            Smithsonian Institution
                        Astrophysical Observatory (SAO)
                              Cambridge, MA 02138
                         (617)495-7151 or (FTS)830-7151

     This submission contains the latest versions of the RED screen editor,
     STOIC  (Stack-Oriented  Interactive Compiler), a variant of FORTH, and
     RDPAR, a set of input routines for use in place of  FORTRAN  formatted
     input.

     1.  RED

              is a screen editor for use with VT100's.  Considerable effort
         has  been  made  to  have  RED  operate  efficiently  in  a  heavy
         interactive  environment.   It's  syntax  is  similar  to  TECO's.
         People  familiar  with  the  Data General editors SPEED and NSPEED
         will feel at home with this editor.  Current  users  of  RED  will
         find  many  new  features,  including  CUT-PASTE  and user-written
         macros.  I  expect  to  support  other  terminals  and  make  more
         efficiency improvements within the next half-year.  RED is written
         in STOIC.

     2.  STOIC

              is a variant of FORTH.  Significant  differences  from  FORTH
         are  integration  of  VMS IO and System Services rather than using
         the FORTH disk structure, compilation of machine code (both inline
         and  subroutine  calls)  as  opposed  to  threaded code for higher
         efficiency.  Double-precision  floating  point  operations  and  a
         floating-point stack have been added with this release.

     3.  RDPAR

              is a set of input  routines  for  use  in  place  of  FORTRAN
         formatted  input.  It can be used with any other language supplied
         by DEC, but the documentation was written with  FORTRAN  in  mind.
         With RDPAR, all input is handled through a "parameter file".  This
         is just an ordinary text file, containing the  data  you  want  to
         pass  to  your  program.  But the order in which data appears in a
         parameter file is not important.  Rather than  using  position  to
         identify  data,  RDPAR  uses  a  "parameter name":  a string which
         appears at the start of each line.   A  call  to  RDPAR  within  a
         program specifies a parameter name, and RDPAR searches through the
         file for it.  For each parameter name, you can  specify  that  the
         (interactive)  user  should  be prompted for the data, or that the
         data should come from  the  DCL  command  line  used  to  run  the
         program.  These and other features are handled entirely within the
         parameter file;  no recompilation of the program is necessary.