Thirty Years of Backwards Compatibility

Eric Lippert

9 Sep 2004 10:12 AM

Comments 12

In response to my earlier series on error handling in VBScript, Ian Griffiths blogged that Reuben Harris noticed an interesting fact about VBScript error numbers -- a fact which I will shamelessly steal and blog about myself.

Here's the complete VBScript runtime error number table.

    5 Invalid procedure call or argument
    6 Overflow
    7 Out of memory
    9 Subscript out of range
   10 This array is fixed or temporarily locked
   11 Division by zero
   13 Type mismatch
   14 Out of string space
   17 Can't perform requested operation
   28 Out of stack space
   35 Sub or Function not defined
   48 Error in loading DLL
   51 Internal error
   52 Bad file name or number
   53 File not found
   54 Bad file mode
   55 File already open
   57 Device I/O error
   58 File already exists
   61 Disk full
   62 Input past end of file
   67 Too many files
   68 Device unavailable
   70 Permission denied
   71 Disk not ready
   74 Can't rename with different drive
   75 Path/File access error
   76 Path not found
   91 Object variable not set
   92 For loop not initialized
   94 Invalid use of Null
322 Can't create necessary temporary file
424 Object required
429 ActiveX component can't create object
430 Class doesn't support Automation
432 File name or class name not found during Automation operation
438 Object doesn't support this property or method
440 Automation error
445 Object doesn't support this action
446 Object doesn't support named arguments
447 Object doesn't support current locale setting
448 Named argument not found
449 Argument not optional
450 Wrong number of arguments or invalid property assignment
451 Object not a collection
453 Specified DLL function not found
455 Code resource lock error
457 This key is already associated with an element of this collection
458 Variable uses an Automation type not supported in VBScript
462 The remote server machine does not exist or is unavailable
481 Invalid picture
500 Variable is undefined
501 Illegal assignment
502 Object not safe for scripting
503 Object not safe for initializing
504 Object not safe for creating
505 Invalid or unqualified reference
506 Class not defined
507 An exception occurred
32811 Element not found
32812 The specified date is not available in the current locale's calendar

There are errors missing from the table -- errors which VB6 raises that VBScript never raises, like "Return without gosub" or "Bad DLL calling convention". And there are errors added that make no sense in VB6, like "not safe for scripting". But more or less, it's the same as the VB6 run-time error table where possible. Obviously that's for backwards compatibility reasons.

Altair BASIC was Microsoft's first product, written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen back in 1975 for the Altair 8080. (Trivia: Microsoft's corporate switchboard number 425-882-8080 is an homage to the Altair!) Here's the Microsoft Altair BASIC error table, both parser and runtime errors:

1 NEXT without FOR
2 Syntax error
3 RETURN without GOSUB
4 Out of data
5 Illegal function call
6 Overflow
7 Out of memory
8 Undefined line
9 Subscript out of range
10 Redimensioned array
11 Division by zero
12 Illegal direct
13 Type mismatch
14 Out of string space
15 String too long
16 String formula too complex
17 Can't continue
18 Undefined user function
19 No RESUME
20 RESUME without error
21 Unprintable error
22 Missing operand
23 Line buffer overflow
26 FOR without NEXT
29 WHILE without WEND
30 WEND without WHILE
50 Field overflow
51 Internal error
52 Bad file number
53 File not found
54 Bad file mode
55 File already open
57 Disk I/O error
58 File already exists
61 Disk full
62 Input past end
63 Bad record number
64 Bad file name
66 Direct statement in file
67 Too many files

I had no idea that the chain of backwards compatibility went back to the original Bill & Paul code! 30 years of backwards compatibility -- not bad!

VBScript, Scripting

RichB

9 Sep 2004 11:37 AM

I don't want to let history get rewritten - Monte Davidoff had a big hand in the original Altair BASIC too.

See http://www.alluvialsw.com/about.html
Norman Diamond

9 Sep 2004 7:27 PM

> Trivia: Microsoft's corporate switchboard
> number 425-882-8080 is an homage to the
> Altair

The last time I looked at Intel's corporate switchboard number it also ended in 8080, but it wasn't a tribute to the Altair, it was a tribute to one of the makers of a small component used in the Altair.

I also met the man whose phone number ended in 8086. His book and his Ph.D. thesis had nothing to do with hardware and no special relationship to Intel chips, but I neglected to ask what brought about that illustrious phone number.

Hmmmmm. By the way, does anyone know if the IBM z-series still uses the same ABEND codes that OS/360 used? If it does, that's 40 years. When the trusty little "IEBGENER" program (IBM's version of the Copy command but with fewer features) abended with 0C4 (one of IBM's kinds of access violation), no one believed me until I showed them.
mike

9 Sep 2004 8:13 PM

I suppose it would be cranky to point out that in 30 years, error messages haven't gotten all that much more helpful. "Bad file mode" indeed. :-)
Tim Smith

9 Sep 2004 9:12 PM

LOL... Good to see that old error 9 is still the "BS" error. I remember that from my old Co-Co days.

Memories, from the corner of my mind...
Joe Grossberg

13 Sep 2004 6:45 PM

Some of the error codes in VBScript date back to the days when Bill Gates and Paul Allen were the...
Ian Griffiths

27 Sep 2004 10:15 AM

Rich, Monte Davidoff wrote the maths package, so strictly speaking it is correct to attribute the error codes to Bill and Paul.

By the way, if you follow the link through to the interview about BASIC on The Register's web site, you'll see there's a link to another article discussing the Altair BASIC source code.

In that article it mentions that two guys named Ian Griffiths (that would be me) and Reuben Harris dug up the code and did some reverse engineering of it. So not only was I aware that Monte Davidoff wrote the maths package, I went to look at the archived copy of the source code in Harvard a few years ago...

The Register article is a little misleading - Reuben did all of the actual reverse engineering work, not me.

Sadly, the link to his work in that article is now defunct. But you can find it temporarily here: http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/altair/ and the page specifically linked to by The Register is here: http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/altair/other%20versions/ian.htm
Jackie Goldstein's Weblog

28 Sep 2004 8:41 PM
Notes from Classy's Kitchen

7 Oct 2004 7:15 AM

OK, they're not really consistent - but at least their BASIC error codes are....
The Old New Thing

17 Jan 2005 11:45 AM
.NET Brain Droppings

9 Mar 2005 9:15 PM
James Shea

23 Dec 2006 2:35 AM

Most of the Z/OS abend codes '0c4, 0c1, oc7' date back to 360 machines era 'which btw does not mean 60's machines' but that the machnes perform for an entire 360 degreee circle of computing functons, which puts them near 50 years old. What is a S0C4? Keeping your feet warm.
Very funny.vbs « Suspens??o de Descren??a

11 Jul 2008 1:56 PM

PingBack from http://suspensaodedescrenca.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/very-funnyvbs/

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