Re: COBOL, Article on new mainframe use

On 8/20/2024 9:51 AM, John Dallman wrote:

In article <9V1xO.583702$qO%5.449825@fx16.iad>, scott@slp53.sl.home
(Scott Lurndal) wrote:
 

Burroughs Cobol 68 compiler was used to implement various
system utilities, including the disk/pack defragmenter.  Granted,
it had an 'ENTER SYMBOLIC' verb which allowed embedded assembler
:-).

 Were Burroughs deliberately eccentric, or was that just an emergent
property of the company?
 I am so glad I did not take up the idea of specialising in Burroughs
stuff after graduation. It was suggested because I was fond of Algol 68,
but it would have been very career-limiting.

Of course, I can't comment on your career choices :-), but you are confusing two different computer lines.  Burroughs, like many of the big computer companies in the 1960s had multiple, incompatible, lines of computers.
The one to which Scott was referring was called the Medium Systems. They were decimal machines, intended for business, and mostly programmed in COBOL.  This was not unlike say some of the IBM lines of the day.
The "Algol oriented" systems were called the Large Scale systems.  By the standards of the day, you might call them "eccentric", but most people would also say innovative.  Among the innovations were hardware/software co-design and OS and system software written in a high level language.  Of course, they had some issues, and got caught in the demise of most mainframe architectures (it exists now in emulation).
--
  - Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)