What other oddball languages have you coded in?

superk · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 2:22 am

What other oddball or proprietary languages, that are still mainframe or peripheral-related, have you coded in?

Pedro · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 2:29 am

My first programming job, as an intern, I uses APL. Those were the good old days. But I forgot most everything.

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 3:08 am

NCR BAL equivalents:
NEAT3
NEATVS

BASIC for NCR Teller Machines

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 4:06 am

FORTRAN ( IBSYS/IBJOB/IBFTC 7090/7094 )
SLIP symmetric list processor
( not really a language but a set of subroutines callable in fortran for list processing )

ELEA 6001 machine language ( had to write the numerics, and hand compute the addresses)

GE115 assembler

APL

FORTRAN ( all the flavors )

IBM 3600 Finance Communication System FCL ( kind of MACRO assembler )
( wrote an ATM application )
with the corresponding VTAM communication side in assembler

IBM assembler

IBM PL/1

VM EXEC2

VM REXX

TSO CLIST

TSO REXX

PASCAL

C ( AIX, windows/linux/mac, s370/s390 DIGNUS Systems/c for cross compilations )

oracle PL/SQL if You want to consider it a language

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 4:08 am

Motorola Four Phase Screen Command Language (or something like that -- I forgot the exact name). Memorable because both the THEN and ELSE pieces of the IF statement had to generate the same number of bytes in the output file and wind up on the same screen character.

HP 2000 Basic -- hardwired terminals so you could turn the terminal off and leave your program running

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 4:17 am

The not so memorable languages include COBOL, FORTRAN, IBM Assembler, SAS, SPSS, BASIC (on 5 different platforms), SIMSCRIPT, PL/I, C, PASCAL, BSC (BISYNC) communications, 6502 assembler (I still don't know the difference between indirect indexed and indexed indirect), PERL, HTML, APPC calls, and enough C++ and Java to write Hello World programs.

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:55 am

AFP, C, HTML/DHTML, MATLAB (I think recently this is also being linked to Mainframes), little bit of Visual Basic..may I include PLC routines (Programmable Logic Controllers)

superk · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:07 pm

For me, I remember coding some programs (usually simulation/game stuff) in VS/BASIC. Then there was Quikjob (anyone remember that product?). For a long time my primary task was to code printer code in the XEROX FDL/PDL language, microfiche in the XCOM language, and then came IBM printer products like SCRIPT/VS, DCF, OGL, PMF, and PPFA.

superk · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:12 pm

No one's coded CPCS (Check Processing Control System)?

expat · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:14 pm

I'm jealous now not coming from a programming background

I know that SAS and REXX aren't "oddball" languages, but I'm sure that some of my programs could be considered

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:15 pm

No CPCS here ... I've coded optical mark reader applications, and Intermec bar code reader applications using CICS and a System 2000 database, but no CPCS (so far).

Robert Sample · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:17 pm

expat, some SAS programs can be quite "oddball" (I should know -- I've coded a few of them myself) !

PeD · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:45 pm

Sort of ... heu heu sort of language ?? for 3770 and 3790 IBM machines.

4 hours of compile process. Stop at first error on a line. So if you have two!!! You spend the night.

3 buffers zones of 256 bytes. So play with overlap ! Gorgeous !!

Terry Heinze · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:15 pm

(DI)gital's (B)usiness (O)riented (L)anguage.

Terry Heinze · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:16 pm

Dick,
Was NEAT National's Electronic Autocoding Technique?

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Fri Oct 03, 2008 11:27 pm

Terry,
to be honest I am not sure what the acronym meant.
back in the 70's on Century 100 and Century 300 NCR computers,
NEAT3 (century 100 series)
and NEATVS (century 300 series)
was to NCR mainframe computers
what Basic Assembler Language is to IBM mainframes.
And there was nothing 'auto' about it; same grind and watching the bits and bytes and boundries and Index Registers and Saves ....
I switched in the early 80's to IBM, learning BAL. After I learned COBOL, never looked back.

CICS Guy · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 5:46 am

Does 1130 Assembler and Control Data's Compass(?) count?
CD machine language?

enrico-sorichetti · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2008 12:16 pm

I forgot...

plugging panels for IBM tabulating machines counts as a language ??

Phrzby Phil · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 12:55 am

1. APL (A Programming Language) - based on Iverson's book (a GREAT!!! language)

2. SNOBOL - a string processing language (in college)

3. LISP - a well-known list processing language (Lots of Insipid Stupid Parentheses) (also in college)

4. CDC 1604 assembler

5. Adage Graphics Language

Anuj Dhawan · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 1:30 am

These Days working on FINALIST, well it takes ZIP code & produce ZIP+4 (+4 is for area code) in output. This comes under IMB (Intelligent Mail Bar Code).

gcicchet · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:23 am

All of mine always had basic in front of them, in other words I have never been a programmer, here's a couple that haven't been mentioned

M024 - database and language of Computer Corporation of America.

KSL - the IOA standard KeyStroke Language

Gerry

dick scherrer · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 11:39 am

Escapa · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 12:07 pm

I have worked on NOMAD

Escapa · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 12:08 pm

Yeah.. and bit of ObjectStar too..

expat · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 1:22 pm

Does punching holes into printer FCB tapes count ?