Hello Dumas!

Friday January 07 2022 04:29, Dumas Walker wrote to me:

>> >> I sent on the "offchance" s/he does read it, long odds I know :(
>> > Are you a current, or past, COBOL developer?
>> Current and for the last 59 years.

> I am currently, and have been for nearly 25 years. :)

Youngster :)

What kit ?

Vincent

On 1/8/22 9:28 AM, Vincent Coen wrote:
> Hello Dumas!
>
> Friday January 07 2022 04:29, Dumas Walker wrote to me:
>
> >> >> I sent on the "offchance" s/he does read it, long odds I know :(
> >> > Are you a current, or past, COBOL developer?
> >> Current and for the last 59 years.
>
> > I am currently, and have been for nearly 25 years. :)
>
> Youngster :)
>
> What kit ?
>

Well, I started on IBM running DOS/E under VM-370 on the 4331.
Went from there to ACOB under EXEC-8 on the UNIVAC 1100.
Then on to VAX COBOL under VMS.
And eventually MicroFocus COBOL with Oracle running on AIX.
Interspersed with all that was TinyCOBOL, OpenCOBOL and
then GnuCOBOL.
Today, pretty much GnuCOBOL with MySQL and Postgres.

bill

> > I am currently, and have been for nearly 25 years. :)

> Youngster :)

> What kit ?

As far as using it at work, it has all been on an IBM mainframe.

Here at home, I have a copy of IBM COBOL/2 that I bought used over 20 years
ago. I have used it to code a few little utilities for myself, nearly all
for my DOS BBS. One still gets used almost daily... it converts a
proprietary drop file format into DOOR.SYS format whenever a door is
opened. :)

Mike

* SLMR 2.1a * ...a host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance...

Hello Bill!

Saturday January 08 2022 14:36, Bill Gunshannon wrote to All:

> On 1/8/22 9:28 AM, Vincent Coen wrote:
>> Hello Dumas!
>>
>> Friday January 07 2022 04:29, Dumas Walker wrote to me:
>>
>> >> >> I sent on the "offchance" s/he does read it, long odds I
>> know :(
>> >> > Are you a current, or past, COBOL developer?
>> >> Current and for the last 59 years.
>>
>> > I am currently, and have been for nearly 25 years. :)
>>
>> Youngster :)
>>
>> What kit ?
>>

> Well, I started on IBM running DOS/E under VM-370 on the 4331.
> Went from there to ACOB under EXEC-8 on the UNIVAC 1100.
> Then on to VAX COBOL under VMS.
> And eventually MicroFocus COBOL with Oracle running on AIX.
> Interspersed with all that was TinyCOBOL, OpenCOBOL and
> then GnuCOBOL.
> Today, pretty much GnuCOBOL with MySQL and Postgres.

What no Cis Cobol ?

One of the first from MF, there was one before just called Cobol and like
CIS the compiler was written in COBOL as a regenerative bootstrap system.

I did have copies of the source code for those early versions and by gum
did the programmers have to work hard but it worked even if you did NOT
become a fan of interpreted code (INT) but amazingly quick for such a slow
method at least in theory but no good for real time applications going by
my memory and yes I still have code written for Cis Cobol.

Vincent

On 1/9/22 11:05 AM, Vincent Coen wrote:
> Hello Bill!
>
> Saturday January 08 2022 14:36, Bill Gunshannon wrote to All:
>
> > On 1/8/22 9:28 AM, Vincent Coen wrote:
> >> Hello Dumas!
> >>
> >> Friday January 07 2022 04:29, Dumas Walker wrote to me:
> >>
> >> >> >> I sent on the "offchance" s/he does read it, long odds I
> >> know :(
> >> >> > Are you a current, or past, COBOL developer?
> >> >> Current and for the last 59 years.
> >>
> >> > I am currently, and have been for nearly 25 years. :)
> >>
> >> Youngster :)
> >>
> >> What kit ?
> >>
>
> > Well, I started on IBM running DOS/E under VM-370 on the 4331.
> > Went from there to ACOB under EXEC-8 on the UNIVAC 1100.
> > Then on to VAX COBOL under VMS.
> > And eventually MicroFocus COBOL with Oracle running on AIX.
> > Interspersed with all that was TinyCOBOL, OpenCOBOL and
> > then GnuCOBOL.
> > Today, pretty much GnuCOBOL with MySQL and Postgres.
>
> What no Cis Cobol ?

Sorry, don't know that one.

>
> One of the first from MF, there was one before just called Cobol and like
> CIS the compiler was written in COBOL as a regenerative bootstrap system.

I heard there was a COBOL Compiler written in COBOL but I never saw
it. The source is probably a hoot.

>
> I did have copies of the source code for those early versions and by gum
> did the programmers have to work hard but it worked even if you did NOT
> become a fan of interpreted code (INT) but amazingly quick for such a slow
> method at least in theory but no good for real time applications going by
> my memory and yes I still have code written for Cis Cobol.

I have done others. But memory fades with time. Quite a bit of
Ryan/McFarland on TRS-80's (both Z80 and 68K under Xenix) and
the PC under DOS. I believe there was an Oregon COBOL as well.
Pr1me COBOL under Primos. DEC COBOL on the PDP-11. Other than
Fortran and probably C has any language run on so many different
systems and architectures? And, as portably. As POC I have moved
COBOL among a number of totally different systems. If the code is
pure COBOL and not loaded with proprietary kludges (thanks for
that DEC) they usually only require changes to things like file
names.

bill

Hello Bill!

Sunday January 09 2022 16:35, Bill Gunshannon wrote to All:

> On 1/9/22 11:05 AM, Vincent Coen wrote:
>> Hello Bill!
>>
>> Saturday January 08 2022 14:36, Bill Gunshannon wrote to All:
>>
>> > On 1/8/22 9:28 AM, Vincent Coen wrote:
>> >> Hello Dumas!
>> >>
>> >> Friday January 07 2022 04:29, Dumas Walker wrote to me:
>> >>
>> >> >> >> I sent on the "offchance" s/he does read it, long odds
>> I
>> >> know :(
>> >> >> > Are you a current, or past, COBOL developer?
>> >> >> Current and for the last 59 years.
>> >>
>> >> > I am currently, and have been for nearly 25 years. :)
>> >>
>> >> Youngster :)
>> >>
>> >> What kit ?
>> >>
>>
>> > Well, I started on IBM running DOS/E under VM-370 on the 4331.
>> > Went from there to ACOB under EXEC-8 on the UNIVAC 1100.
>> > Then on to VAX COBOL under VMS.
>> > And eventually MicroFocus COBOL with Oracle running on AIX.
>> > Interspersed with all that was TinyCOBOL, OpenCOBOL and
>> > then GnuCOBOL.
>> > Today, pretty much GnuCOBOL with MySQL and Postgres.
>>
>> What no Cis Cobol ?

> Sorry, don't know that one.

>>
>> One of the first from MF, there was one before just called Cobol and
>> like CIS the compiler was written in COBOL as a regenerative
>> bootstrap system.

> I heard there was a COBOL Compiler written in COBOL but I never saw
> it. The source is probably a hoot.

>>
>> I did have copies of the source code for those early versions and by
>> gum did the programmers have to work hard but it worked even if you
>> did NOT become a fan of interpreted code (INT) but amazingly quick
>> for such a slow method at least in theory but no good for real time
>> applications going by my memory and yes I still have code written
>> for Cis Cobol.

> I have done others. But memory fades with time. Quite a bit of
> Ryan/McFarland on TRS-80's (both Z80 and 68K under Xenix) and
> the PC under DOS. I believe there was an Oregon COBOL as well.
> Pr1me COBOL under Primos. DEC COBOL on the PDP-11. Other than
> Fortran and probably C has any language run on so many different
> systems and architectures? And, as portably. As POC I have moved
> COBOL among a number of totally different systems. If the code is
> pure COBOL and not loaded with proprietary kludges (thanks for
> that DEC) they usually only require changes to things like file
> names.

Yes done that a lot along with the millenium bug work - very well paid to
sort out other programmers poor coding but there again how many of us
programming in the 60 - 70 thought the programs would still be running by
2000 - well I am sticking to that despite making a fair bit of money out of
it as a freelancer in various places in the UK and around the world.

Vincent

In article <1641752439@f1.n250.z2.fidonet.ftn>,
Vincent Coen <VBCoen@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello Bill!
>
>Sunday January 09 2022 16:35, Bill Gunshannon wrote to All:

[snip]

> > I have done others. But memory fades with time. Quite a bit of
> > Ryan/McFarland on TRS-80's (both Z80 and 68K under Xenix) and
> > the PC under DOS. I believe there was an Oregon COBOL as well.
> > Pr1me COBOL under Primos. DEC COBOL on the PDP-11. Other than
> > Fortran and probably C has any language run on so many different
> > systems and architectures? And, as portably. As POC I have moved
> > COBOL among a number of totally different systems. If the code is
> > pure COBOL and not loaded with proprietary kludges (thanks for
> > that DEC) they usually only require changes to things like file
> > names.
>
>Yes done that a lot along with the millenium bug work - very well paid to
>sort out other programmers poor coding but there again how many of us
>programming in the 60 - 70 thought the programs would still be running by
>2000 - well I am sticking to that despite making a fair bit of money out of
>it as a freelancer in various places in the UK and around the world.

'Write every ad-hoc report as though it is a subroutine that will be
called by every program in the system because the odds are good that it
will be' used to be part of The Teachings.

DD

On 1/9/22 1:20 PM, Vincent Coen wrote:
> Hello Bill!
>
> Yes done that a lot along with the millenium bug work - very well paid to
> sort out other programmers poor coding but there again how many of us
> programming in the 60 - 70 thought the programs would still be running by
> 2000 - well I am sticking to that despite making a fair bit of money out of
> it as a freelancer in various places in the UK and around the world.
>

And now you bring up one of the other things that has always amazed
me about COBOL. 40 years ago I worked at a rather prestigious DOD
site. They were mainly a UNIVAC 1100 shop but also had a number of
minis and fledgling micros (this was pre-PC). I wrote COBOL and
Fortran for the 1100. I wrote Fortran and Pascal for the smaller
machines. Later, before finally leaving for greener pastures, I
wrote some C. 30 years after I did this I had reason to return to
the site and visited my old office. My COBOL was still in use as
evidenced when a young programmer poring over a greenbar listing
looking up at me after hearing me introduced, pointed at my name
in a comment and asked if that was me. To the best of my knowledge,
they are now a UNISYS OS2200 shop and are still running the code
I wrote 40 years ago. Also to the best of my knowledge, none of
the Fortran, Pascal, C or any other language programs I wrote are
still in use.

Tell me again just what is wrong with COBOL!

bill

In article <j4193sFhr94U1@mid.individual.net>,
Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 1/9/22 1:20 PM, Vincent Coen wrote:
>> Hello Bill!
>>
>> Yes done that a lot along with the millenium bug work - very well paid to
>> sort out other programmers poor coding but there again how many of us
>> programming in the 60 - 70 thought the programs would still be running by
>> 2000 - well I am sticking to that despite making a fair bit of money out of
>> it as a freelancer in various places in the UK and around the world.
>>
>
>And now you bring up one of the other things that has always amazed
>me about COBOL. 40 years ago I worked at a rather prestigious DOD
>site. They were mainly a UNIVAC 1100 shop but also had a number of
>minis and fledgling micros (this was pre-PC). I wrote COBOL and
>Fortran for the 1100. I wrote Fortran and Pascal for the smaller
>machines. Later, before finally leaving for greener pastures, I
>wrote some C. 30 years after I did this I had reason to return to
>the site and visited my old office. My COBOL was still in use as
>evidenced when a young programmer poring over a greenbar listing
>looking up at me after hearing me introduced, pointed at my name
>in a comment and asked if that was me. To the best of my knowledge,
>they are now a UNISYS OS2200 shop and are still running the code
>I wrote 40 years ago. Also to the best of my knowledge, none of
>the Fortran, Pascal, C or any other language programs I wrote are
>still in use.
>
>Tell me again just what is wrong with COBOL!

It's not just COBOL, Mr Gunshannon, it's also things like triple flat-file
merges and alternate-index access... stuff that The Ancients did
half-drunk and three-quarters asleep that confound youngsters who know
only tables and SQL.

Now there was once a time when a state-of-the-art computer was being built
for the Social Security Administration and the machine was 're-allocated'
to the Department of Defense for 'national security purposes'.

When I humped code for SSA there were still some people there who were
very bitter about it... I remember something about retaining records for
fifty-seven years, you'd be handed some fragile, yellowed pages containing
a file's description (field name, description, type of data, length) and
be told 'the magnetic's crumbling off the substrate, we have to transfer
this quickly!'

DD

On 1/9/22 6:56 PM, docdwarf@panix.com wrote:
> In article <j4193sFhr94U1@mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 1/9/22 1:20 PM, Vincent Coen wrote:
>>> Hello Bill!
>>>
>>> Yes done that a lot along with the millenium bug work - very well paid to
>>> sort out other programmers poor coding but there again how many of us
>>> programming in the 60 - 70 thought the programs would still be running by
>>> 2000 - well I am sticking to that despite making a fair bit of money out of
>>> it as a freelancer in various places in the UK and around the world.
>>>
>>
>> And now you bring up one of the other things that has always amazed
>> me about COBOL. 40 years ago I worked at a rather prestigious DOD
>> site. They were mainly a UNIVAC 1100 shop but also had a number of
>> minis and fledgling micros (this was pre-PC). I wrote COBOL and
>> Fortran for the 1100. I wrote Fortran and Pascal for the smaller
>> machines. Later, before finally leaving for greener pastures, I
>> wrote some C. 30 years after I did this I had reason to return to
>> the site and visited my old office. My COBOL was still in use as
>> evidenced when a young programmer poring over a greenbar listing
>> looking up at me after hearing me introduced, pointed at my name
>> in a comment and asked if that was me. To the best of my knowledge,
>> they are now a UNISYS OS2200 shop and are still running the code
>> I wrote 40 years ago. Also to the best of my knowledge, none of
>> the Fortran, Pascal, C or any other language programs I wrote are
>> still in use.
>>
>> Tell me again just what is wrong with COBOL!
>
> It's not just COBOL, Mr Gunshannon, it's also things like triple flat-file
> merges and alternate-index access... stuff that The Ancients did
> half-drunk and three-quarters asleep that confound youngsters who know
> only tables and SQL.
>
> Now there was once a time when a state-of-the-art computer was being built
> for the Social Security Administration and the machine was 're-allocated'
> to the Department of Defense for 'national security purposes'.
>
> When I humped code for SSA there were still some people there who were
> very bitter about it... I remember something about retaining records for
> fifty-seven years, you'd be handed some fragile, yellowed pages containing
> a file's description (field name, description, type of data, length) and
> be told 'the magnetic's crumbling off the substrate, we have to transfer
> this quickly!'
>
> DD
>

Doc, I really enjoy some of the stuff you say here but I have
to admit that I haven't a clue what you just said. Or what it
has to do with COBOL. :-)

bill

In article <j41eekFio28U1@mid.individual.net>,
Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 1/9/22 6:56 PM, docdwarf@panix.com wrote:
>> In article <j4193sFhr94U1@mid.individual.net>,
>> Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 1/9/22 1:20 PM, Vincent Coen wrote:
>>>> Hello Bill!
>>>>
>>>> Yes done that a lot along with the millenium bug work - very well paid to
>>>> sort out other programmers poor coding but there again how many of us
>>>> programming in the 60 - 70 thought the programs would still be running by
>>>> 2000 - well I am sticking to that despite making a fair bit of money out of
>>>> it as a freelancer in various places in the UK and around the world.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And now you bring up one of the other things that has always amazed
>>> me about COBOL. 40 years ago I worked at a rather prestigious DOD
>>> site. They were mainly a UNIVAC 1100 shop but also had a number of
>>> minis and fledgling micros (this was pre-PC). I wrote COBOL and
>>> Fortran for the 1100. I wrote Fortran and Pascal for the smaller
>>> machines. Later, before finally leaving for greener pastures, I
>>> wrote some C. 30 years after I did this I had reason to return to
>>> the site and visited my old office. My COBOL was still in use as
>>> evidenced when a young programmer poring over a greenbar listing
>>> looking up at me after hearing me introduced, pointed at my name
>>> in a comment and asked if that was me. To the best of my knowledge,
>>> they are now a UNISYS OS2200 shop and are still running the code
>>> I wrote 40 years ago. Also to the best of my knowledge, none of
>>> the Fortran, Pascal, C or any other language programs I wrote are
>>> still in use.
>>>
>>> Tell me again just what is wrong with COBOL!
>>
>> It's not just COBOL, Mr Gunshannon, it's also things like triple flat-file
>> merges and alternate-index access... stuff that The Ancients did
>> half-drunk and three-quarters asleep that confound youngsters who know
>> only tables and SQL.
>>
>> Now there was once a time when a state-of-the-art computer was being built
>> for the Social Security Administration and the machine was 're-allocated'
>> to the Department of Defense for 'national security purposes'.
>>
>> When I humped code for SSA there were still some people there who were
>> very bitter about it... I remember something about retaining records for
>> fifty-seven years, you'd be handed some fragile, yellowed pages containing
>> a file's description (field name, description, type of data, length) and
>> be told 'the magnetic's crumbling off the substrate, we have to transfer
>> this quickly!'
>>
>
>Doc, I really enjoy some of the stuff you say here but I have
>to admit that I haven't a clue what you just said. Or what it
>has to do with COBOL. :-)

And still a most gracious compliment, Mr Gunshannon... thanks! One of the
innovations of COBOL had to do with the way it described and dealt with
files; a decent coder could do a three-file merge that was maintainable by
other programmers in a way that hadn't been, before. Likewise,
alternate-index access was an easy and wonderful thing to do.

We'd also code, go out, grab dinner, drink, talk about work, drink some
more... and then be hit with A Revelation and rush back to the office to
pound the keyboards. Did you never write code after a couple-some jolts
o' hooch and a missed night's sleep?

I did... and that code - like yours - is still running on Vital Systems.

Nowadays everything's in 'a table' and accessed via Structured Query
Language (SQL). This is how youngsters are taught in technical schools
and universities, there's no need to learn where records in relation to
each other because the Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) takes
care of all of that for you.

Computers are ubiquitous and cheap; back in the Oldene Dayse huge, wealthy
government agencies would squabble with each other over who gets the
latest gear out of Armonk (N.Y., the former headquarters of IBM). Back in
those ancient times there was a disagreement over a machine (for which
armies of young, buzz-cut men in white shirts and neckties) that was
ordered by the Social Security Agency and the Department of Defense. The
DoD got that box by invoking 'national security' (gotta beat them
Russkies!) and that 'theft' of equipment for their own COBOL-coders still
rankled people as Social Security a third of a century later.

The magnetic tapes that SSA used - and, probably still uses - were
physically deterioriating, literally crumbling before one's eyes, but each
one had pieces of paper (likewise wilting) with descriptions like (pardon
the tabs)

SSN Social Security Number 1 9 Num
F-NAM Name, First 10 15 Alph
M-NAM Name, Middle (opt) 16 15 Alph
L-NAM Name, Last 32 25 Alph
EMPID Employee ID (opt) 58 8 Num

.... and anybody trained in COBOL can code up an FD or an SD while
half-drunk after a sleepless night.

It's a way of seeing the world frozen into the time, tools and technology
of the late 1950s. To a bright, fresh youngster born in the mid-1990s it
is 'old and complicated'...

.... while to the dinosaurs who still walk this glorious, sunny earth it
makes perfect sense, it's solid as a rock, processes hundreds of millions
of transactions in a twenty-minute window (I remember Mr Trembley) and
doesn't get touched for fun, fancy or fashion.

Write the code in 1985 according to the '68 standard and make sure the
word-alignment optimises storage (out of habit). Get it into Prod.
Recompile it for Y2K in 1997. And yet it still runs. (Hi, Galileo!)

I hope this clarifies things and I appreciate the time you've spent with
me on it.

DD