In article <20021108010337.395c1a90.bjorn_persson.spam-is-evil@sverige.nu>, Bj�rn Persson <bjorn_persson.spam-is-evil@sverige.nu> writes:

> I don't think Text_IO's design is a problem in itself. It can be 
> quite useful when working with text files. The problem is that the 
> standard input and output streams are defined to be text files. The 
> programmer should be allowed to decide whether Text_IO or 
> Sequential_IO is most appropriate.

On VMS you would just open a Sequential_IO file for output saying the
name is SYS$OUTPUT.  Isn't the same thing available on other operating
systmes ?