VMS Help FORTRAN, Statements, READ, Sequential, Formatted  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

  Translates the data from character to binary format as specified by
  format specifications.  Statement formats:

  1. READ(extu,fmt[,iostat][,err][,end])[iolist]
     Reads from a specified external unit.

  2. READ f[,iolist]
     Reads from FOR$READ (normally, the terminal).