Article 171477 of comp.os.vms:
Norm Lastovica wrote:
> 
> I recall plowing through the sources at one point in time
> (seems like it was either loginout or the image activator)
> and ran into a comment (andy goldstein's?) reading something
> along the lines of:
> 
>         ! The following is a flagrant violation of the
>         ! vax/vms calling standard.  Such is life.
> 
> I believe that the code was busy dummying up a call frame to
> REI back to.  Anyone with a source license wanna double-check
> my memory?

It's in the PROTCLI module in LOGINOUT. The actual text reads
"Modification of a call frame is a flagrant violation of the VAX-11
Calling Standard. Such is life."

The module has Len Kawell's name on it, part of the first rewrite of
LOGINOUT in 1980. What the routine was doing was implementing the effect
of a $CMSUPR service, which doesn't exist. The code in LOGINOUT that
used it called it with a $CMEXEC. The routine then peeled back the call
frames, built a PC/PSL pair for supervisor mode, and entered it by doing
an REI through the PC/PSL pair just built. It then called the routine
originally specified by the caller.

This routine was used to map and protect the CLI so that the CLI pages
would be owned by and accessible to supervisor mode. Calling this a
flagrant violation of the calling standard may be a bit of
grandstanding. Certainly the code has carnal knowledge of call frames,
but other places in VMS do this as well.