A Fortran Console application (.EXE) is a character-based Visual Fortran program that does not require screen graphics output. It looks similar to a program running on a UNIX® workstation or a terminal connected to a mainframe computer.
Fortran Console projects operate in a single window, and let you interact with your program through normal read and write commands. Console applications are better suited to problems that require pure numerical processing rather than graphical output or a graphical user interface. This type of application is also more transportable to other platforms than the other types of application.
Fortran Console applications can be faster than Fortran Standard Graphics or Fortran QuickWin graphics applications, because of the resources required to display graphical output (see Using the Console).
Any graphics routine that your program calls will produce no output, but will return error codes. A program will not automatically exit if such an error occurs, so your code should be written to handle this condition.
With a Fortran Console project, you can use static libraries, DLLs, and dialog boxes, but you cannot use the QuickWin functions. You can select the multithreaded libraries with this and all of the other Fortran project types.
As with all Windows command consoles, you can toggle between viewing the console in a window or in full-screen mode by using the ALT+ENTER key combination.
A sample Fortran Console project is Celsius (see \MYPROJECTS\CELSIUS), as
described in "Opening an Existing Project" in Compaq Visual Fortran
Installing and Getting Started or Defining Your Project.