Re: COBOL history, Article on new mainframe use

According to Lawrence D'Oliveiro  <ldo@nz.invalid>:

On Fri, 30 Aug 2024 18:37:42 +0300, Michael S wrote:
>

It would not surprise me if COBOL compiler was implemented and tested on
7080 then, while still on 7080, ported to emulated 705 and then sold to
users of real 705.

>
As I recall, IBM wasn’t part of CODASYL, and had no part in COBOL
development.

Um, if you spent ten seconds looking at the 1960 COBOL report, you would have found IBM
listed as one of the contributors, and it specifically lists the IBM Commercial Translator
as one of thte sources for COBOL.

So it had the usual “NIH” attitude and was trying to push

PL/I as its all-singing, all-dancing language for both business and
scientific use, for some time.

Um, if you spent another ten seconds looking at the 1964 NPL report (I hope you know what that
was), it would be glaringly obvious that the numbered data structures and picture data
come directly from COBOL.  Because they knew that's what their commercial customers
wanted.  To avoid confusion, 1964 was four years after 1960.

Eventually, of course, customers forced it to relent and offer COBOL.

That might take two or three minutes to check that IBM offered COBOL on their
7000 machines years before they had PL/I on the 360.  And of course, they had
COBOL and Fortran on the 360 at the same time.
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