In article <[log in to unmask]>,
[log in to unmask] writes
>In a message dated 97-01-20 10:51:24 EST, [log in to unmask] (Art Bahrs) writes:
>
><<    COBOL is an excellent suggestion for a language tho :)
>  >>
>
>Or RPG.
>
>Denys (Putting on his asbestos suit.)

Ask Roger Levy's son what he thinks RPG means, and I'll lay odds he says
'Role Playing Games'.

Good old RePuGnant, eh?

I first met that on a Singer System Ten. Six bit bytes, hard partitions,
each of 10k. But you could pull one of them, stick it in another System
Ten, and it would carry right on... Hot swappable drives? Child's play I
tell you.

On that machine, it was either Assembler or RPG. Guess what we used?
Yep, that's right. Assembler.

RPG has this wonderful thing called the 'execution cycle'. Just like a
big flywheel that ran and ran, and you could hitch a ride on it with
your 'non-procedural' statements wrapped round the spokes. Input,
Calculate, Output, automatic multi-file matching - easy-peasy!

Only trouble was - E, the Exception statement, for the stuff that didn't
quite fit. And 'E's weren't wrapped round the spokes, they were a big
stick stuck in them, trying to slow, divert, or even reverse the big
flywheel.

You knew you'd come of age in RPG when your programs had more E's that
anything else, and you knew by heart the 'technical' appendix on the
exact details of the execution cycle, the one provided 'for interest
only'. You also went looking for a more 'neutral' language, where all
you had to do was make things happen, instead of stopping the juggernaut
as well....

But the System Ten was a great little box, though, for 1976. The HP3000
was kind of like its grown-up brother - similar online philosophy. But
10 more bits, a real language in COBOL, and memory management. 32k
'partitions' up from 10k, IMAGE to maintain the chains for you in the
Master and Detail datasets that almost exactly mapped the Direct and
Relative files on the System Ten. And of course 120mB drives, each only
as big as a 10mB drive on the System Ten (of which I had 12!)

Only thing that went 'backwards' from the System Ten to the HP3000 was
that on the Ten, secondaries didn't migrate. With the algorithm Singer
used, they didn't need to. The HP way was supposed to be more efficient,
but I wonder, and it's always been a pain to remember to code for it.
(But thankfully, never in RPG!)


--
Roy Brown               Phone : (01684) 291710     Fax : (01684) 291712
Affirm Ltd              Email : [log in to unmask]
The Great Barn, Mill St 'Have nothing on your systems that you do not
TEWKESBURY GL20 5SB (UK) know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.'