DEC Extension Support for gcc-4.8.3

[W Spector]

Tim Prince <n8tm at aol dot com> wrote:
> ... I thought the purpose of permitting '$' was to support VMS system function calls, so implicit integer may make sense. Such programs evidently won't be portable even if you reconcile this bit.

Allowing $ in variable names was an old, old, ('60s/'70s) IBM mainframe 
extension, and maybe others of the era too.  I first encountered it in 
1978 or so. So definitely pre-VAX.

Some dusty brain cells are thinking it may have been also used by some 
compilers (or pre-processors) to separate statements on a single line. 
Which of course is now done with semi-colons.

Walter