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Conversion to Linux

  • July 18, 2017
  • 7 replies
  • 2 views
D

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol

7 replies

Juan Urraburu
  • Juan Urraburu
  • Participating Frequently
  • July 18, 2017

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol

Hi,

You need the new compiler and runtime for Linux, 32bit or 64bit.

Regards,

Juan Urraburu

D

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol

Juan is correct: however, an RM/COBOL v12 runtime system should be able to run your programs and access your data files on a new platform without recompilation. You may still want to recompile to take advantage of performance improvements in the compiler that have been made over the 28 years (!) since this program was last compiled. Simply moving the old programs to a current operating system/CPU architecture will already wow your client with the boost in performance over a 30 year-old system.

D

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol
That's what I was thinking but it was worth it to ask. A compiler and the required one year of support is pricey when all I need to do is compile about thirty programs with no changes. I may come back here to see if any RM developer would like to do the compiles for me. Anyway, thanks for your reply; I appreciate the input. - Carl
D

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol
NOTE: My replies may be out of sync. While replying to JuanU the message from UweB came in.

Uwe - Juan said that I DO need to recompile, you're saying that I don't need to recompile. I will be talking to pre-sales tech support in a few minutes and I'll go over this with them but I may get back with you here after I speak to them. Anyway, thanks for the information.
Thomas Morrison
  • Thomas Morrison
  • Participating Frequently
  • July 18, 2017

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol
Uwe may be slightly over-enthusiastic. What he suggests will probably work, maybe, possibly. However, I can guarantee you that nobody has ever tested that level of backward compatibility. I would strongly urge you not to avoid the additional cost of the compiler (development system, is what it is called). In fact, how many users does this client require. If it is a single user, you would not need to have a separately licensed runtime. Recompile, retest, and redeploy.

An alternative is to license the development system for Windows, where you can used CodeWatch (of which Uwe is the proud author) to do the edit-compile-debug cycle with an animated debugger. Then use the platform independence to move the compiled objects to the Linux box for production. This would leave your client with a modern system in place should you (and I both) get hit by a bus.

As a final note, I would never, ever recommend to one of my clients that someone else compile the code. Instead, leave a client in a situation where the client has a lot more control over his destiny. I have come into situations where a couple thousand dollars were saved in the past, only to cause chaos and confusion - costing far more than the amount saved - when the inevitable problems come along.
Tom Morrison, Consultant, South Carolina, USA
D

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol
I clarified my reply above a bit. Note that I did say "should be able to run your programs" because such a big jump is an uncommon scenario. The current runtime system is designed to be backward-compatible with programs produced by all previous versions of RM/COBOL-85 (but not pre-85 RM/COBOL), and significant effort was put into maintaining program-file compatibility over the years, but that's not an absolute guarantee that there won't be minor issues that would be corrected by recompiling.
D

I'm a software developer and consultant. I have an old client that is running a system developed in RM/COBOL (I did much of the development) that I would like to move to a Linux distro. They are currently running on SCO-Unix (version 5.something) using RM-COBOL-85 ver. 2.02.04 runtime. I did a "strings" command on one of the object files and it looks like they are compiled using RM/COBOL-85 2.02 for I-80386 Xenix V. The last compile date was in October of 1989. They access the application using terminal emulation from their desktop PCs.

I'm trying to find out what tools I need to do this. I understand that the most recent version of the compiler is RM/COBOL v12. The customer does not need to make any changes to the application, I just want to move them to an environment that is more stable than a twenty-plus year old opsys running on 18 year old hardware.

It would not surprise me if all I needed was a current runtime. By the same token, it would be reasonable if I need to recompile the system. Is there anyone out there that can give me some insight on this? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated and THANKS!


#RMCOBOL
#linuxcobol
Just picked this up due to time zone differences. We converted one of our Customers from SCO Unix to Red Hat Linux in 2010 or thereabouts. The SCO Unix versions for RMCOBOL were 8.00.00 for development and runtime. The Red Hat Linux RMCOBOL runtime(runtime only, no development system) was version 12.02 for 32 bit Linux. We had about 100 progs to transfer over. They all worked under Linux except for some minor printing issues I seem to recall which were easy to sort out. The Unix server and Linux server were both added to the Customer network so if we needed to change a prog we did this on the Unix server (having copied any files required for testing from the Linux server), compiled it on the Unix server and then copied the compiled prog to the Linux server. However In your case I'm not sure you have the old development system for 2.02.04. In any case this is well past it's sell by date and Tom's idea of buying a Windows development system is the most economical way of proceeding. In that case it might be advisable to recompile all the source progs to create up to-date runtimes. If you do this I strongly advise you follow the points Tom raised in his final paragraph.

Bob Greasley

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