dbp@Data-IO.COM (Dave Pellerin) (05/25/89)
My dear old Auntie is a consultant who sells trash systems (actually, computer systems for waste disposal companies) and she needs some help. It seems a potential customer has his eye on a pile of used DEC Rainbow computers, and wants to know if her stuff will port to the Rainbow from the MS-DOS environment it runs in. The garbage software in question is written in MS-COBOL. So... - Does MS-COBOL run on the DEC rainbow? - Are MS-COBOL applications developed on the IBM PC object code compatible on the Rainbow? - How do you get the object files from the IBM PC to the Rainbow (remember, the Rainbow has brain-damaged disks)? Will Kermit work? If there is anyone in the Pacific Northwest who has done a similar port: ya wanna make a few bucks? - Dave Pellerin remember - Garbage In, Garbage Out!
GTHEALL@penndrls.upenn.edu (George A. Theall) (05/26/89)
From: pilchuck!dataio!dbp@uunet.uu.net (Dave Pellerin) > - Does MS-COBOL run on the DEC rainbow? I don't know, but most older compilers from Microsoft work fine on the Rainbow. Why are you worried about this? Does your auntie plan to develop software *on* the Rainbow, or merely *for* it? > - Are MS-COBOL applications developed on the IBM PC object code > compatible on the Rainbow? Once again, I don't know (boy, I'm pretty ignorant today :-) but an educated guess is that it is. Do you know whether the code makes use of any BIOS routines, or does it only use standard MS-DOS function calls? If the latter, auntie's chances of making some $$$ improve tremendously! (There may be a matter of which version of MS-DOS the client has; until last year, the latest version available was v2.11; starting in August, though, Suitable Solutions has been marketing and supporting v3.10 for our machines!! Price for the newer version is <$100.) > - How do you get the object files from the IBM PC to the > Rainbow (remember, the Rainbow has brain-damaged disks)? > Will Kermit work? It's not as tough as you might think. First, have auntie ask the client if he/she has an I-drive. This neat little gadget adds a 5.25" PC-compatible drive to the Rainbow. If the client has one already, auntie won't have to do any extra work; otherwise, there are still some alternatives to take without resorting to Kermit. Does auntie have a 1.2MB drive in her machine? If so, there's a device driver called RX50 available on many bbs's which gives you full read/write access to Rainbow floppies. Sure, your aunt will have to get a hold of a few of these, but the client can probably supply them himself. All she would need to do is install the device driver, reboot her AT, then copy the files over onto the RX50's. Piece o' cake. A somewhat less reliable alternative would be to format a PC disk single-sided, then copy the files onto it (remember, only ~170K on each disk), then the client would read from this diskette after typing MEDIACHK ON on his Rainbow. This trick works on my machine when transfering from surrounding PCs, but I've heard it doesn't work on all Rainbows. George +------------------------------------------+---------------------------+ | GTHEALL@PENNDRLS (BITNET) | Dept. of Economics | | GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU (INTERNET) | Univ. of Pennsylvania | | | 3718 Locust Walk /6297 | | (215) 898-6741 (AT+TNet) | Philadelphia, PA. 19104 | +------------------------------------------+---------------------------+
bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) (05/27/89)
In article <1996@dataio.Data-IO.COM>, dbp@Data-IO.COM (Dave Pellerin) writes: > It seems a potential customer has his eye on a pile of used DEC Rainbow > computers, and wants to know if her stuff will port to the Rainbow from > the MS-DOS environment it runs in. The garbage software in question is > written in MS-COBOL. So... > > - Does MS-COBOL run on the DEC rainbow? There is no reason why MS-COBOL shouldn't run on the Rainbow; other Microsoft compilers will, though I've never used Microsoft COBOL. Be aware that the Rainbow is not BIOS compatible or hardware compatible with the IBM-PC, so if the COBOL programs call, for example, subroutines written in Assembler or C to do screen I/O directly to the hardware as is common in the IBM-PC world, they will not work. If you run MS-DOS 3.1 and Code Blue on the Rainbow (both available from Suitable Solutions in Santa Clara, CA) many ill-behaved programs can be made to run, but it's sort of a gamble. Some of the debugging software like CodeView will not be very happy on the Rainbow, I don't think (though I've never tried to run it under Code Blue). > - Are MS-COBOL applications developed on the IBM PC object code > compatible on the Rainbow? Yes, except as noted above about BIOS and hardware compatibility. The problem is that as soon as your code tries to talk to the devices on the PC directly or make ROM-BIOS calls, you get into trouble. But if you have strictly text or file I/O you have no particular problems. Sometimes in fact it can be easier to build an application on the Rainbow - it can have up to 896K of MS-DOS addressable memory which can come in REAL handy if you have a big application (no overlays :-) > - How do you get the object files from the IBM PC to the > Rainbow (remember, the Rainbow has brain-damaged disks)? > Will Kermit work? The Rainbow will very happily read single-sided IBM floppies. You can also get an IBM compatible drive for the Rainbow (also from Suitable Solutions, they are one of the few companies still doing much with the Rainbow). Kermit will work, though you will have to get the Rainbow version of Kermit (the IBM version won't run on the Rainbow, of course, since it talks to the COM ports directly). My biggest reservation about this project is that unless the application is quite "plain-vanilla" in terms of its use of IBM-PC BIOS and hardware I/O calls, or unless there are an awful lot of used Rainbows involved so that the cost can be amortized over a lot of hardware, it would be quite easy for the cost of software conversion to outweigh the cost of using PC-compatible clones. Of course if the customer already has the Rainbows sitting around surplus from another part of their operation that might be another matter ... Bruce C. Wright
kushall.Henr@XEROX.COM (05/30/89)
<< - Does MS-COBOL run on the DEC rainbow? - Are MS-COBOL applications developed on the IBM PC object code compatible on the Rainbow? - How do you get the object files from the IBM PC to the Rainbow (remember, the Rainbow has brain-damaged disks)? Will Kermit work? I don't have specfic info on MS-COBOL but the other MS compilers are not IBM specofic and run under generic MS-DOS. I would expect the MS_COBAL to run. The object code should run on the Rainbow providing the application does all it's IO via MS-DOS. If the author of the code did ttricks to speed up IO (like write to screem RAM or access the Pc keybaord directly, then ALL BETS are off. You can transfer the files to a PC dick from the rainbow using Media Master to format an IBM floppy for single side (175KB). The Rainbow can read and write to this format, however disks formatted on a PC can not be reliabily written on the RB, thus you need Media Master or equiv to format the disk on the bow. Kermit will work also, othe file transfer programs will also work, XMODEM etc. Ed Kushakk
art@MITRE.MITRE.ORG (Art McClinton) (05/30/89)
This topic <COBOL Compilers on MS-DOS> seems to be very hot on FIDO. At
the present time the same discussion is going on over there. A brief
summary is that the Micro Soft COBOL will run on the rainbow. Prior to
the most recent release it did not require Code Blue. The most recent
release however has inserted a hardware clear screen at start-up.
This requires code blue to run the compiler or any executables.
Another Cobol compiler was mentioned (sorry do not remember the name)
that will run on the Rainbow without CodeBlue. This compiler is identical
to the VAX Cobol.
In any case, the use of the DISPLAY command in either compiler by-passes
the MS-DOS commands and writes directly to the screen. This will make it
IBM specific.
*
*---Art
*
*Arthur T. McClinton Jr. ARPA: ART@MITRE.ARPA
*Mitre Corporation MS-Z305 Phone: 703-883-6356
*1820 Dolley Madison Blvd Internal Mitre: ART@MWVMS or M10319@MWVM
*McLean, Va. 22102 DECUS DCS: MCCLINTON
*
=-=- This note is in response to yours which follows -=-=
<<
- Does MS-COBOL run on the DEC rainbow?
- Are MS-COBOL applications developed on the IBM PC object code
compatible on the Rainbow?
- How do you get the object files from the IBM PC to the
Rainbow (remember, the Rainbow has brain-damaged disks)?
Will Kermit work?
I don't have specfic info on MS-COBOL but the other MS compilers are not
IBM specofic and run under generic MS-DOS. I would expect the MS_COBAL to
run.
The object code should run on the Rainbow providing the application does
all it's IO via MS-DOS. If the author of the code did ttricks to speed up
IO (like write to screem RAM or access the Pc keybaord directly, then ALL
BETS are off.
You can transfer the files to a PC dick from the rainbow using Media Master
to format an IBM floppy for single side (175KB).
The Rainbow can read and write to this format, however disks formatted on
a PC can not be reliabily written on the RB, thus you need Media Master or
equiv to format the disk on the bow.
Kermit will work also, othe file transfer programs will also work, XMODEM
etc.
Ed Kushakk