DIBOL-11

[bill]

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

[Arne Vajhøj]

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.

But anyway.

They had Cobol, Basic and PL/I among what I would
call clearly business oriented languages plus Pascal,
Fortran and Ada that also sometimes was used for
such programming.

But I am not so surprised they wanted Dibol as well.
There tend to always be a pretty broad palette of
programming languages for such general purpose.
Different domains, different developer preferences
etc. tend to steer towards many programming languages.
Having 4 or 7 languages does not seem
excessive to me.

If someone wanted to start such an application today,
then they would have even more choices. Java, Scala, Kotlin,
Groovy, C#, VB.NET, PHP and Python are definitely used for such
plus C, C++ and Go are also used for such.

Arne

[Chris Townley]

I am sure you could add a few more...

--
Chris

[Dave Froble]

On 3/10/2023 6:56 PM, Arne Vajhøj 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.

Dibol was on the PDP-8. As far as I know, the PDP-8 didn't have Cobol or Basic.
Only with RSTS on the PDP-11 did DEC have Basic+. So Dibol pre-dates some
other languages that DEC had.

As for the RPG question, I don't know.

> But anyway.
>
> They had Cobol, Basic and PL/I among what I would
> call clearly business oriented languages plus Pascal,
> Fortran and Ada that also sometimes was used for
> such programming.
>
> But I am not so surprised they wanted Dibol as well.
> There tend to always be a pretty broad palette of
> programming languages for such general purpose.
> Different domains, different developer preferences
> etc. tend to steer towards many programming languages.
> Having 4 or 7 languages does not seem
> excessive to me.
>
> If someone wanted to start such an application today,
> then they would have even more choices. Java, Scala, Kotlin,
> Groovy, C#, VB.NET, PHP and Python are definitely used for such
> plus C, C++ and Go are also used for such.
>
> Arne
>
>
>

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: da...@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

[Dave Froble]

But why would you want to ??

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/11/2023 1:24 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 3/10/2023 7:15 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>> On 10/03/2023 23:56, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> They had Cobol, Basic and PL/I among what I would
>>> call clearly business oriented languages plus Pascal,
>>> Fortran and Ada  that also sometimes was used for
>>> such programming.
>>>
>>> But I am not so surprised they wanted Dibol as well.
>>> There tend to always be a pretty broad palette of
>>> programming languages for such general purpose.
>>> Different domains, different developer preferences
>>> etc. tend to steer towards many programming languages.
>>> Having 4 or 7 languages does not seem
>>> excessive to me.
>>>
>>> If someone wanted to start such an application today,
>>> then they would have even more choices. Java, Scala, Kotlin,
>>> Groovy, C#, VB.NET, PHP and Python are definitely used for such
>>> plus C, C++ and Go are also used for such.
>>

>> I am sure you could add a few more...
>>
>
> But why would you want to ??

Point is that for programming languages people seems to
have different preferences resulting in demand for a large
number of different programming languages.

One size does not fit all. Five sizes does not fit all
either. Twenty sizes may fit all.

Arne

[plugh]

The pdp-8 had Dibol. I can't think of any other business-oriented language; Wikipedia isn't much help on that search. Mabye Dibol-11 was for migration. Much good code was written for the 8 that a business case could be made to move such to the 11. I'm sure there was more good code produced, but the stuff from MCBA comes to mind.

[bill]

On 3/11/2023 1:24 AM, Dave Froble wrote:

And the really big difference is function and purpose.
COBOL, DIBOL, Fortran, BASIC, Pascal and RPG were domain
specific languages. (I should mention here that two of
those languages were frequently used outside their domain and maybe that
contributed to the later demise of domain specific languages.)
Never really sure why PL/I came about but that's IBM. :-)
All of the languages listed in the "today" list a general purpose
and not targeted at any particular problem. I guess it comes
back to the efficiency question that I used to I used to raise
with my academic peers. I always said efficiency was still important
while they insisted, "Why bother. Just throw more hardware at the
problem."

bill

[bill]

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.

bill

[plugh]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Operating_System


The company I worked for at the time kept me employed sell^^^flogg ing those systems in the early 80's

[Dave Froble]

Or maybe nothing to do with each other?

[Dave Froble]

The problem with that concept is that maintenance is a bit harder, if
maintainers are not familiar with all the languages, then misconceptions can
lead to mistakes. It goes back to my dissatisfaction with programmers who like
to be different/smarter. Most/all programming will eventually need maintenance.

[Arne Vajhøj]

There are good reasons for companies to limit themselves to
one or at least just a few of those.

But company A may chose a different 1-3 of from the larger
set than company B.

Resulting the number of languages being in the market
being much bigger.

Arne

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/11/2023 9:17 AM, bill wrote:
> On 3/11/2023 1:24 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 3/10/2023 7:15 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
>>> On 10/03/2023 23:56, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> They had Cobol, Basic and PL/I among what I would
>>>> call clearly business oriented languages plus Pascal,
>>>> Fortran and Ada  that also sometimes was used for
>>>> such programming.
>>>>
>>>> But I am not so surprised they wanted Dibol as well.
>>>> There tend to always be a pretty broad palette of
>>>> programming languages for such general purpose.
>>>> Different domains, different developer preferences
>>>> etc. tend to steer towards many programming languages.
>>>> Having 4 or 7 languages does not seem
>>>> excessive to me.
>>>>
>>>> If someone wanted to start such an application today,
>>>> then they would have even more choices. Java, Scala, Kotlin,
>>>> Groovy, C#, VB.NET, PHP and Python are definitely used for such
>>>> plus C, C++ and Go are also used for such.
>>>

>>> I am sure you could add a few more...
>>
>> But why would you want to ??
>
> And the really big difference is function and purpose.
> COBOL, DIBOL, Fortran, BASIC, Pascal and RPG were domain
> specific languages.  (I should mention here that two of
> those languages were frequently used outside their domain and maybe that
> contributed to the later demise of domain specific languages.)
> Never really sure why PL/I came about but that's IBM. :-)
> All of the languages listed in the "today" list a general purpose
> and not targeted at any particular problem.  I guess it comes
> back to the efficiency question that I used to I used to raise
> with my academic peers.  I always said efficiency was still important
> while they insisted, "Why bother.  Just throw more hardware at the
> problem."

I split the today languages in two groups for a reason.

Because they are not truly general.

The first group of languages are the languages geared
towards let us call it "server side business
applications". That label is way broader and
more diverse than "business computing" of the past,
but still the languages would be unsuitable for
writing an OS or writing embedded real time code. Some of
them are used client side (C# and VB.NET for Windows desktop
apps, Java and Kotlin for Android apps).

The second group are the languages geared towards
the platform stuff and just happen to be used/misused
for business applications.

Arne

[Single Stage to Orbit]

On Sat, 2023-03-11 at 12:48 -0500, Dave Froble 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.
> >
> > bill
> >
>
> Or maybe nothing to do with each other?

Convergent evolution. The theory that things evolve to do the same
things regardless of where they started from.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

[gah4]

On Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 6:17:07 AM UTC-8, bill wrote:

(snip)

> Never really sure why PL/I came about but that's IBM. :-)

(snip)

System/360 followed a series of business oriented machines, and a
series of scientific machines. The idea was one line that could do both.

PL/I was a combination of ideas from COBOL, ALGOL, and Fortran.
That is, a language that could do all.

Originally, it was planned to use it instead of writing COBOL, ALGOL,
and Fortran compilers.

[Bob]

On Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 12:24:17 AM UTC-6, Dave Froble wrote:

> Dibol was on the PDP-8. As far as I know, the PDP-8 didn't have Cobol or Basic.
> Only with RSTS on the PDP-11 did DEC have Basic+. So Dibol pre-dates some
> other languages that DEC had.

OS/8 absolutely had both Basic and MU-BASIC. But no COBOL.

My first job at DEC was supporting PDP-8 software. I know I dabbled in DIBOL, but never did much with it.

[Pizza RAC]

ANYTHING is better than RPG ...

[Pizza RAC]

On Friday, March 10, 2023 at 6:26:53 PM UTC-5, bill wrote:

except c

[John Dallman]

In article <a58231ac-dc86-45c8...@googlegroups.com>,

pizzara...@gmail.com (Pizza RAC) wrote:

> ANYTHING is better than RPG ...

Ah, sir is clearly not familiar with Filetab. The Wikipedia page does not
capture the "liveliest Awfulness" of this language, which is based on
some kind of geometric model in a 2D plane being used to describe report
generation. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filetab>

John

[bill]

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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/11/2023 8:05 PM, gah4 wrote:
> PL/I was a combination of ideas from COBOL, ALGOL, and Fortran.
> That is, a language that could do all.
>
> Originally, it was planned to use it instead of writing COBOL, ALGOL,
> and Fortran compilers.

Yes. The "if we create a language that can do anything then
this will be the only language the entire wold will need" and
"if some features are good then more features must be better
and all features must be best" mentality.

PL/I, C++, Ada95, Scala seems to suffer from that mentality.

I don't agree with it and I think we can conclude that the
world does not agree.

Multiple simpler languages with good interoperability
is the way to go IMHO.

Arne

[Paul Gavin]

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

[plugh]

Then you will remember their distinctive code style. Roughly 20 years after I left MCBA-based work, I was writing due diligence reports in the mid 90's. One site involved an A/R system with source code. I recognized the style immediately: the file naming standard was the first clue. The MCBA code was so table-driven that data declarations at the top gave away the game even as there was no copyright. The procedures followed their naming standards, code organization was also immediately recognizable. Such was the quality of that system design.

I have to admit I enjoyed the gob-smacked response of the sysadmin as he had to explain the code's provenance.

[Simon Clubley]

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.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/13/2023 9:47 AM, 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/

OK

> 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.

They seem to be on the net today:

https://www.synergex.com/docs/#lrm/1_Welcome_Syn_Lang.htm

https://www.synergex.com/docs/#sdi/Title_sdi.htm

Arne

[Simon Clubley]

On 2023-03-12, Paul Gavin <paulg...@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 ?

[Bob Armstrong]

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.

[Pizza RAC]

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

[Pizza RAC]

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

[Pizza RAC]

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

[Scott Dorsey]

bill <bill.gu...@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."

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2023-03-13 14:55, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2023-03-12, Paul Gavin <paulg...@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