The following points arose out of the discussions.
(1) Following AJHW's attempts to implement SPROGS on the 360/195, it was decided that it would be preferable to change the names of the SD4020 routines such as FILEMARKS etc to:
(a) be 6 characters or less,
(b) start with SD, in keeping with the other output device routines.
(2) Intensity/colour information should be combined into one argument, and SD4020 therefore have one less argument.
(3) Hewlett-Packard routines should deal with colour at the line drawing level, rather than at calls to COLGL.
(4) A number of users have been caught by ENDSPR not doing a frame advance. The original idea was to detect failed jobs and avoid plotting the tape. However, with the advent of spooling, this is less of a problem. It was decided to alter ENDSPR accordingly.
(5) FR80 should be added in as a new device, rather than as a SD4020 replacement. It was suggested that a set of one-word COMMON blocks be provided, each of which would be set by BLOCK DATA to a device number. Users could then make use of COMMON and avoid explicit numbers of devices.
(6) It was suggested that at some time the tape and spool output should be treated as separate devices, thus allowing long-job output to tape with occasional frames to spool for quicker plotting.
(7) AJHW is completing a string-handling facility in FORTRAN. This could form the basis for passing strings of text via display routines straight to an output device. Further discussion is required on the possibility of providing a simple, not clippable, text handling facility so that:
(a) the FR8O hardware generator may be used,
(b) users can access text without the overhead of all display routines, filestore etc, being loaded.
