HP 3000 Manuals

HP FORTRAN 77/iX Reference

Character Format 

A character datum is a character string taken from the HP ASCII character
set.  An ASCII character occupies one byte (eight bits) of a 32-bit word,
and are packed four to a word in memory.

Character variables and constants can start or end or both in the middle
of a word.  The other bytes of the word may be used by the compiler as
part of other variables or constants, or they may be unused.

When character items are passed as actual arguments, the address of the
characters is passed, followed by an integer containing the number of
characters in the string.  The integer is passed by value.

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation