Re: [open-cobol-list] Old dog, new tricks

[Ulf Dambacher]

Hi Michael

We ported our cobol programs from HP MPE3000 to windos/linux/acucobol some years
ago (currently I'm working on converting to linux/OC...).

We tried to compile the biggest source first and found the differences.
Then I wrote a awk script to convert the rest automatically. We converted 30k+
lines in one weekend.
We had some special intrinsic calls to do screen io with cursor positioning
(wich now can be done by the extended ACCEPT and DISPALY) I converted back.

We used command line and emacs as ide. Try it - you may love or hate it.

The biggest problem was printing support. I ened up in doing output to a
sequencial text file and wrote a little background task wich reads the file,
does some checks (mimicing something like the "outlevels" on MPE, e.g hold a job
or not) and advances to a user configured printer using cups, sometimes through
enscript for headers/footers or 72 lines on A4 paper.
If you're getting to printing, don't hesitate to contact me.

Ulf


Michael schrieb:
> I've been writing COBOL for decades... Became interested in OC about a 
> years ago, could not get it installed on Vista. Actually Vista sux, 
> nothing runs right it except IE! I'll be loading XP on it soon.
>
> However, and this is leading up to a questions or two. I picked up a new 
> desk top box (custom built, no OS) yesterday, loaded Ubuntu on it + the 
> 268 updates, OC 1.0-1, Eclipse 3.2.
>
> I am not a Linux expert, thats why I choose Ubuntu, and I've never used 
> Eclipse. I really don't want to get into the big learning curve of 
> Eclipse, projects, and all that. I just want to edit COBOL, and compile, 
> link, ....... an so on. I prefer the command line, and don't want to be 
> stuck in a GUI! I've been using Programmer Studio ( 
> http://www.programmerstudio.com/ ). It's a GUI Editor, but also allows 
> me to enter/save my command line stuff to compile and link. It 
> understands most all common languages, and is multi-platform, including 
> the HP3000. Maybe it would run on Linux with Wine?
>
> I have allot of COBOL code to move from my HP3000 to Linux OC..... My 
> goal is to eventually setup a Linux server, and emulate the HP3000 
> environment on it, lots of COBOL!
>
> What is the best/simplest path to take in the Edit and compile area?
> Is there a simple side to Eclipse, I don't know what half the crap on 
> the screen is?
> What are you guys using to manager you code?