asf@sbcs.UUCP (Alan S. Fink) (08/14/87)
I'm hoping somebody out there can help me. I have a client whose software
runs on an IBM S/36 and is written in RPG II. For the sake of increasing
my productivity and hours-worked-per-day (I currently have a 3 hour commute
each way, which leaves me somewhat exhausted), he has asked me to look into
PC software which will essentially emulate a S/36 with RPG II (rel 4 or 5)
and OCL (rel 5). I've received information from the software companies who
manufacture such a product, but I would like to know if anybody out there has
used any of the following and what they think of them. The software I know
of is:
- Baby/36 Full System California Software Products
- Micro RPG II Native Software
- RPG II Software West
Price is not really an object, but if anybody's used Baby/36, is it worth the
additional $2000 over and above the cost of the other companies software? If
anybody knows of other software packages for S/36 development on a PC please
let me know of them too.
Thanks in adavance,
Alan Fink
--
Alan S. Fink
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ARPA: asf%sunysb.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA
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madd@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP (Jim "Jack" Frost) (08/18/87)
In article <501@sbcs.UUCP> asf@sbcs.UUCP (Alan S. Fink) writes: >I'm hoping somebody out there can help me. I have a client whose software >runs on an IBM S/36 and is written in RPG II. For the sake of increasing >my productivity and hours-worked-per-day (I currently have a 3 hour commute >each way, which leaves me somewhat exhausted), he has asked me to look into >PC software which will essentially emulate a S/36 with RPG II (rel 4 or 5) >and OCL (rel 5). I've received information from the software companies who >manufacture such a product, but I would like to know if anybody out there has >used any of the following and what they think of them. The software I know >of is: > > - Baby/36 Full System California Software Products > - Micro RPG II Native Software > - RPG II Software West When we were converting from our (*eek*) System/32 to a PC system (recently), we looked into the Baby/36 system. Apparently it is a pretty good system -- it's been out for several years and they are still in business. I don't have any other experience with it, though. We converted with Lattice's RPG II compiler. Right now it's in version 1.12 and was released just a year ago. It's not perfect but they are working hard on it and each new version has been a dramatic improvement. Here's a run-down on Lattice's product: * generates native code * fully supports just about everything except IBM S/3x machine calls (which is not surprizing). does support external function calls from other compilers. * allows both EBCDIC and ASCII operation. EBCDIC operation correctly supports the stranger move operations (move zone, etc). * uses dBASE files to store data. * allows multiple indexes. Its code runs quite faster than it did on our System/32, but that's not surprizing either. Caveats: * not fully debugged. there are small problems with multifile (3+) processing with addrout files and also some strange things having to do with overflow detection/page breaks. * only allows one addrout file per program (this wasn't documented but I found it). * KEY and SET operations sometimes operate strangely, but anything that uses workstations will work nice as long as you use a monochrome monitor. * not completely compatible with the way IBM handles numeric fields. if you program correctly, this is not a problem; if you do things like overlap char/numeric fields, it can cause problems. basically Lattice does checks for the validity of numeric fields while IBM does not. The Lattice Tech people were very helpful every time I needed help overcoming some strangeness in their compiler. They also offer an SEU (not too bad although it could use some work -- beats the hell out of the SEU that I had on the S/32, though) and a sort/merge. The sort/merge is incredible. We sped up program operations immensely just because of the speed of this program. It is possible to completely emulate IBM sorts (#GSORT) up to the System/34. I haven't seen docs for the /36 so I don't know about that. They have no equivalent OCL package. I ended up writing an OCL as well as a sort converter (loads in place of #GSORT, translates the sort specs and then calls their sort/merge). This was quite a task but seems to work well. CONCLUSIONS Overall I'm not terribly impressed with the Lattice product in its current version. A new version with major revisions is supposed to be released shortly, however. This release should fix most of the problems that we had (according to Lattice). Their sort/merge is good enough that I would buy it for any sorting operation. If Lattice were to provide an OCL, they would have a nice package. -- Disclaimer: This was provided for public information. I have no relation to Lattice except that I use some of their products. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Jim Frost * The Madd Hacker | UUCP: ..!harvard!bu-cs!bucsb!madd H H | ARPA: madd@bucsb.bu.edu H-C-C-OH <- heehee +---------+---------------------------------- H H | "We are strangers in a world we never made"