Thanks to all who responded. Several working solutions were recommended.
 
Special thanks to those who pointed out the existence of the HPEXTIN
intrinsic to convert numeric values in COBOL. This approach solved our
problem but at the same time gives us the opportunity to use many other
intrinsics we thought could not be invoked within COBOL.
 
HPEXTIN converts a byte array of ASCII digits into a SHORTINT,  REAL,
INTEGER, or  LONGREAL numeric value.
 
Even a sample program is included in the HP COBOL II/XL PROGRAMMER'S GUIDE
using the PAUSE intrinsic. We just modified the source to pass the value
through the INFO parameter.
 
Regards,
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