Hi all! Hope everyone's doing well today!

For OS 2200, Unisys provides as the main programming languages C, Fortran, COBOL, and PLUS. Having read the PLUS manual, it seems to occupy a niche somewhat like PL/I on Z - writing utility code that has to interface with the system, rather than line-of-business apps (which is where COBOL lives.) Is this accurate? How common are the other languages, proportionally? I assume COBOL makes up the lion's share.

Kira

On 8/31/2022 12:26 PM, Kira Ash wrote:
> Hi all! Hope everyone's doing well today!
>
> For OS 2200, Unisys provides as the main programming languages C, Fortran, COBOL, and PLUS. Having read the PLUS manual, it seems to occupy a niche somewhat like PL/I on Z - writing utility code that has to interface with the system, rather than line-of-business apps (which is where COBOL lives.) Is this accurate?

Sort of. Plus (the name was originally an acronym for "Programming
Language for Univac Systems - Univac was one of the predecessors of
Unisys), was developed to be a "systems programming language", sort of
like PL/S on Z. It is used for portions of the OS and other such
things. It was not intended to by used by non-Unisys programmers.

Its derivation was from Jovial, which itself was derived from Algol.
The idea was that Univac could have a higher level language that wasn't
constrained by any national or international standard, and thus could be
modified to meet its internal needs.

How common are the other languages, proportionally? I assume COBOL makes
up the lion's share.

I don't know, but I suspect you are probably correct.

--
- Stephen Fuld
(e-mail address disguised to prevent spam)

On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 3:26:14 PM UTC-4, Kira Ash wrote:
> Hi all! Hope everyone's doing well today!
>
> For OS 2200, Unisys provides as the main programming languages C, Fortran, COBOL, and PLUS. Having read the PLUS manual, it seems to occupy a niche somewhat like PL/I on Z - writing utility code that has to interface with the system, rather than line-of-business apps (which is where COBOL lives.) Is this accurate? How common are the other languages, proportionally? I assume COBOL makes up the lion's share.
>
> Kira

PLUS was used for parts of the operating system (OS 2200), most of the compilers, coms and utilities. All the tools I developed (parts pf LA, MS Manager, SA Utilities, and parts of MSAR) were all in plus.

COBOL was predominant for application based coding, although FORTRAN was also very close. Not a lot of C on the platform.

I was just looking at some PLUS code the other day going through some old UPLI while moving them to GitHUB, although I haven't coding in it un years. I'll likely give it a go when I have time to spend on the OS 2200 Express emulator. Hate to lose my spot as one of the dozens of people that still know it.

Keith Stone

Keith Stone wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 3:26:14 PM UTC-4, Kira Ash wrote:
>> Hi all! Hope everyone's doing well today!
>>
>> For OS 2200, Unisys provides as the main programming languages C, Fortran, COBOL, and PLUS. Having read the PLUS manual, it seems to occupy a niche somewhat like PL/I on Z - writing utility code that has to interface with the system, rather than line-of-business apps (which is where COBOL lives.) Is this accurate? How common are the other languages, proportionally? I assume COBOL makes up the lion's share.
>>
>> Kira
>
> PLUS was used for parts of the operating system (OS 2200), most of the compilers, coms and utilities. All the tools I developed (parts pf LA, MS Manager, SA Utilities, and parts of MSAR) were all in plus.
>
> COBOL was predominant for application based coding, although FORTRAN was also very close. Not a lot of C on the platform.
>
> I was just looking at some PLUS code the other day going through some old UPLI while moving them to GitHUB, although I haven't coding in it un years. I'll likely give it a go when I have time to spend on the OS 2200 Express emulator. Hate to lose my spot as one of the dozens of people that still know it.
>
> Keith Stone
>

C's usage has been spreading for over 20 years now, all kinds of
programs - and parts of the exec - have been rewritten in that language.
The extended mode "system calls" - the equivalent of basic mode ERs -
are designed to be called from C. Me? I wrote UCOB-callable interfaces
to those system calls in MASM. UFTN could call many of them directly.

On Thu, 15 Sep 2022 22:18:53 +0200, Andrew <Doug@hyperspace.vogon.gov>
wrote:

>Keith Stone wrote:
>> On Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 3:26:14 PM UTC-4, Kira Ash wrote:
>>> Hi all! Hope everyone's doing well today!
>>>
>>> For OS 2200, Unisys provides as the main programming languages C, Fortran, COBOL, and PLUS. Having read the PLUS manual, it seems to occupy a niche somewhat like PL/I on Z - writing utility code that has to interface with the system, rather than line-of-business apps (which is where COBOL lives.) Is this accurate? How common are the other languages, proportionally? I assume COBOL makes up the lion's share.
>>>
>>> Kira
>>
>> PLUS was used for parts of the operating system (OS 2200), most of the compilers, coms and utilities. All the tools I developed (parts pf LA, MS Manager, SA Utilities, and parts of MSAR) were all in plus.
>>
>> COBOL was predominant for application based coding, although FORTRAN was also very close. Not a lot of C on the platform.
>>
>> I was just looking at some PLUS code the other day going through some old UPLI while moving them to GitHUB, although I haven't coding in it un years. I'll likely give it a go when I have time to spend on the OS 2200 Express emulator. Hate to lose my spot as one of the dozens of people that still know it.
>>
>> Keith Stone
>>
>
>C's usage has been spreading for over 20 years now, all kinds of
>programs - and parts of the exec - have been rewritten in that language.
>The extended mode "system calls" - the equivalent of basic mode ERs -
>are designed to be called from C. Me? I wrote UCOB-callable interfaces
>to those system calls in MASM. UFTN could call many of them directly.

Unless you are using a somewhat expansive definition of "parts of the
exec", there is no UC code in the Exec. And the Extended Mode CALLs,
while CALLable from UC, were definitely not designed to be CALLed from
UC.