VMS Help PASCAL, Data Types, String Types, PACKED  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

  User-defined packed arrays of characters with specific lower and
  upper   bounds  provide  a  method  of  specifying  fixed-length
  character strings.  The string's lower bound must equal 1.   The
  upper bound establishes the fixed length of the string.

  Additional Information (explode) :

• Examples