Criterion COBOL Compiler(ID:3801/cri002)NCR CobolShapiro et al, NCR 1973 Related languages
References: in [AFIPS] Proceedings of the 1978 Fall Joint Computer Conference FJCC 53 view details The NCR Criterion 8500 has a symbolic debugger for COBOL. The COBOL programmer is able to trace or dump any COBOL variables or statements by setting flags which tell the microcode to invoke the debugger when appropriate events occur in [AFIPS] Proceedings of the 1978 Fall Joint Computer Conference FJCC 53 view details Many years ago I headed up a COBOL compiler project for NCR for the then-new VRX systems, which included a "COBOL Virtual Machine" object code set. We produced a "tagged architecture" machine COBOL as a low-level machine language. (My thesis research on a SNOBOL machine contributed some features to the product.) I wrote this up in a paper for the 1978 Fall Joint Computer Conference ("The Criterion COBOL Compiler"). It discusses the approach we took and some of the problems we ran into. The compiler itself was relatively straight-forward, much like a text-book example. (The fact that I was teaching compiler construction at San Diego State University at the time may have influenced my approach.) We compiled the DATA DIVISION statements into descriptors which were handled by the runtime firmware. Incidentally, we were one of the first COBOL'74 compilers to go through the Federal COBOL Compiler Validation Service testing. They found only four problems: two console I/O interpretation questions and two incorrect level diagnostics. My COBOL background before coming to the project was one program in a programming languages course. I later wrote a couple of more programs as tests, which made me an expert among most computer scientists! I still have a reading knowledge of the language in [AFIPS] Proceedings of the 1978 Fall Joint Computer Conference FJCC 53 view details |