On 2023-03-12, Paul Gavin <paulgavinco@gmail.com> wrote:
> Many years ago I worked on MCBA accounting apps written in DIBOL that ran on PDP-8 and PDP-11's with RT-11, TSX/DBL and RSTS/E. MBCA had a poor mans ISAM that really wasn't all that bad considering it worked on all those platforms. Cannot say I really liked DIBOL all that much but it was compact and relatively easy to learn. Fast forward to the mid 80's on VMS, I even did QIOs in DIBOL on VMS to interact with 3270 emulators.
>

That jogged a long-forgotten memory.

With RSTS/E DIBOL, you had two ISAM systems, RMS and an earlier DIBOL
specific ISAM system.

I only used DIBOL-specific ISAM at the start of my career, so I have
completely forgotten the details.

Was DIBOL-specific ISAM written to support ISAM on systems running DIBOL
that didn't have RMS indexed files ? Were there such operating systems ?

Like I said, way too long ago and I only used it for a relatively brief
period of time before switching to RMS ISAM.

Does anyone remember enough to fill in the details ?

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

FWIW there was apparently (and amazingly!) a proper COBOL for OS/8. See

http://www.pdp8online.com/pdp8cgi/query_docs/view.pl?id=2078

I'd love to find out more about it, and especially a copy of the binaries if they still exist.

On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 12:35:04 PM UTC-4, bill wrote:
> On 3/12/2023 9:17 AM, Pizza RAC wrote:
> > On Friday, March 10, 2023 at 6:26:53 PM UTC-5, bill wrote:
> >> Just something that popped into my head that I thought I would share.
> >>
> >> I wondered why DIBOL came into being at all given what was already
> >> available from DEC. And then it hit me. It was obviously DEC's
> >> answer to IBM's RPG.
> >>
> >> Does that sound right to anyone else?
> >>
> >> bill
> >
> > ANYTHING is better than RPG ...
> I suspect you haven't done all that much RPG. While it wouldn't be
> my first choice, it is better at what it does than many of the more
> current ego languages.
>
> bill

false - I used rpg III for 6 months on an as400 between PDP and Vax/Alpha DIBOL - it was menu city reports worse environment ever

On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 5:21:55 PM UTC-4, Paul Gavin wrote:
> Many years ago I worked on MCBA accounting apps written in DIBOL that ran on PDP-8 and PDP-11's with RT-11, TSX/DBL and RSTS/E. MBCA had a poor mans ISAM that really wasn't all that bad considering it worked on all those platforms. Cannot say I really liked DIBOL all that much but it was compact and relatively easy to learn. Fast forward to the mid 80's on VMS, I even did QIOs in DIBOL on VMS to interact with 3270 emulators.
>
> Worked for DEC Software Services from 1983-92 and had to do all sorts of odd stuff. The only language on VMS I didn't do much with was Fortran.
>
> Paul

I started out the same actually liked that accounting package ...

On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 9:47:02 AM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-03-10, Arne Vajhøj <ar...@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> > On 3/10/2023 6:26 PM, bill wrote:
> >> Just something that popped into my head that I thought I would share.
> >>
> >> I wondered why DIBOL came into being at all given what was already
> >> available from DEC. And then it hit me. It was obviously DEC's
> >> answer to IBM's RPG.
> >>
> >> Does that sound right to anyone else?
> >
> > I don't know Dibol - my understanding is that
> > it is a sort of a hybrid between Cobol and Basic.
> > I don't know RPG either.
> >
> More like the functionality of Cobol and Fortran (with syntax that is
> _nothing_ like Cobol :-))
>
> Have a look for yourself:
>
> https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dibol/
>
> Modern Synergex DIBOL is nothing like the old DIBOL in terms of
> functionality BTW. However, those manuals were behind a paywall
> (and only legally available as part of a contract) when I last
> used Synergex DIBOL, so they are not freely available to view.
>
> Simon.
>
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

on vms alpha it is the best environment ever ... could do anything

bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Having no experience with the PDP-8 I didn't know DIBOL started there.
>My first DIBOL was DIBOL-11. Maybe I had it backwards and it was RPG
>that came out as an answer to DIBOL.

The original RPG wasn't really a programming language, just a database
report system. It wasn't Turing-complete; you could not write a sort
or a number guess program in it.

RPG II had a lot of cool stuff in it that the original RPG did not have,
and it was a real programming language, but it was once again a programming
language that started out as a database report generator.

DIBOL is something different... it took a lot of concepts from COBOL such
as the I/O management but it ditched the horrible COBOL syntax for a modern
more Algol-style syntax.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 2023-03-13 14:55, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-03-12, Paul Gavin <paulgavinco@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Many years ago I worked on MCBA accounting apps written in DIBOL that ran on PDP-8 and PDP-11's with RT-11, TSX/DBL and RSTS/E. MBCA had a poor mans ISAM that really wasn't all that bad considering it worked on all those platforms. Cannot say I really liked DIBOL all that much but it was compact and relatively easy to learn. Fast forward to the mid 80's on VMS, I even did QIOs in DIBOL on VMS to interact with 3270 emulators.
>>
>
> That jogged a long-forgotten memory.
>
> With RSTS/E DIBOL, you had two ISAM systems, RMS and an earlier DIBOL
> specific ISAM system.
>
> I only used DIBOL-specific ISAM at the start of my career, so I have
> completely forgotten the details.
>
> Was DIBOL-specific ISAM written to support ISAM on systems running DIBOL
> that didn't have RMS indexed files ? Were there such operating systems ?
>
> Like I said, way too long ago and I only used it for a relatively brief
> period of time before switching to RMS ISAM.
>
> Does anyone remember enough to fill in the details ?

Well, there was DIBOL for RT-11, and RT-11 never had RMS as far as I know.

DIBOL on the PDP-8 existed, but what kind of capabilities existed there
I have no idea. But obviously RMS never existed for the PDP-8.

Johnny