VMS Help PASCAL, Predeclared Routines, Dyn Alloc, NEW  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

  The NEW procedure allocates memory for the dynamic  variable  to
  which  a  pointer  variable  refers.   The  value  of  the newly
  allocated variable is set to the initial value of the base  type
  if defined; otherwise, the value of the variable is undefined.

  Syntax:

     NEW( p [[, {t1,...,tn | d1,...,dn} ]] )

  The parameter 'p' is a pointer variable.

  The  parameters  't1,...,tn'  are  constant  expressions  of  an
  ordinal  type that represent nested tag-field values, where 't1'
  is the outermost variant.

  If the object of the pointer is a non-schema  record  type  with
  variants,  then  you have two ways of allocating memory.  If you
  do not specify 't' parameters, Compaq  Pascal  allocates  enough
  memory  to  hold  any  of the variants of the record.  If you do
  specify 't' parameters,  then  Compaq  Pascal  allocates  enough
  memory to hold only the variant or variants that you specify.

  Since the 't' parameters cause Compaq Pascal to allocate  memory
  for  the  variant alone and not for the whole record, you cannot
  assign or evaluate the record as a whole;  you  can  assign  and
  evaluate  only  the individual fields.  Also, a call to NEW does
  not set the tag fields of a variant record.

  The paramters 'd1,...,dn' are compile-time or  run-time  ordinal
  values that must be the same type as the formal discriminants of
  the object.

  If the object of the pointer is  of  an  undiscriminated  schema
  type,  you  must  specify a 'd' parameter for each of the formal
  discriminants  of  the  schema   type.    The   'd'   parameters
  discriminate  the  schema  type  in  much the same way as actual
  discriminants in a discriminated schema.   Compaq  Pascal  bases
  the size of the allocation on the value of the 'd' parameters.

  If the object is a schema record type, then  you  must  use  'd'
  parameters;  you  cannot  use 't' parameters or a combination of
  the syntaxes.  If the schema  record  type  contains  a  variant
  (which  depends on one of the formal discriminants) then the 'd'
  parameter discriminates the schema, determines the variant,  and
  allows  Compaq  Pascal  to  compute  the  necessary  size of the
  allocation.

  Note that if you specify 't' parameters to  the  NEW  procedure,
  you  must  specify  the  same  't'  parameters  to  the  DISPOSE
  procedure  that  deallocates  memory   for   the   corresponding
  variable.