[Info-vax] VMS Software needs to port VAX DIBOL to OpenVMS X86 platform

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 12/15/20 10:53 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 12/15/2020 10:47 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 12/15/20 10:35 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 12/15/2020 10:19 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> On 12/15/20 8:26 AM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>> On 12/15/2020 8:17 AM, Chris Townley wrote:
>>>>>> On 15/12/2020 13:05, Michael C wrote:
>>>>>>> On Monday, December 14, 2020 at 9:39:20 PM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 12/14/2020 2:08 PM, ultr... at gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>>>> So Synergex as of now refuses to port their OpenVMS version of 
>>>>>>>>> DIBOL to OpenVMS X86.
>>>>>>>> Well Bob, perhaps you can acquire a copy of the DIBOL product in 
>>>>>>>> order
>>>>>>>> to implement it on x86 VMS?
>>>>>>>>> This is a request for VMS software to port VAX DIBOL to the x86 
>>>>>>>>> OpenVMS environment.
>>>>>>>> This forum, as Jan-=Erik may have mentioned, is not a VSI 
>>>>>>>> support venue.
>>>>>>>>> I have started a project using DIBOL and need to implement it 
>>>>>>>>> on the x86 platform.
>>>>>>>> Use Basic ....
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> :-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> DIBOL runs circles around basic :0
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Wasn't Dibol based on Cobol?
>>>>>
>>>>> It is supposedly inspired by Cobol and Basic and Fortran.
>>>>
>>>> Point out one thing in a DIBOL program that even vaguely
>>>> resembles COBOL (other than the last three letters of the
>>>> name).
>>>
>>> Wikipedia claims:
>>> * BCD arithmetic
>>
>> Lots of languages did and do BCD Arithmetic doesn't mean they
>> resemble or acquired that from COBOL.
> 
> Today most languages do have some sort of decimal type.
> 
> Back then not so many.

COBOL, PL/I and even 360 Assembler.  May have been more, but my'memory 
dims more every day.

> 
>>> * data and procedure divisions
>>
>> While the manual states there is a data and a procedure division the 
>> word division is not used in source code, the start of the data area
>> is  not delinieated and the separation of the two is merely the symbol
>> PROC.  Again, no similarity to COBOL.
> 
> I find it very unlikely that those words was invented independently
> of Cobol.

Most languages (other than maybe BASIC :-) separate data and procedure.
Good programming practice would do it even if the language didn't.  As
I said, the term Data Division appears only in the manual, no where
within a program.

> 
> The claim was not that it used Cobol syntax but that it
> was inspired by Cobol.

It looks much more inspired by Fortran given any examination of
a program source example.

bill