Personal computing for the mainframe programmer

Offloading mainframe pro- gramming work to personal computers lead to a greater increase in productivity. Micro Focus has introduced the VS, COBOL workbench, a PC-based software package for develop- ing mainframe COBOL pro- grams. By using the Work- bench, programmers can work independently of the main- frame to create and test main- frame applications.

The workbench allows in-

teractive editing, compilation and testing of mainframe pro- grams which have been down- loaded to a personal computer over a micro/mainframe link. The programs are then re- turned to the mainframe for final integration testing and running.

The software supports the COBOL language as imple- mented in IBM’s OSNS COBOL and VS COBOL II com- piler. Micro Focus says that

Low cost micros Wyse Technology has intro-

duced the Wysepc family of personal computers for distri- butors and OEMs. The micro- computers are IBM PC com- patible and are currently avail- able in the USA, UK and Europe.

The model WY-1101-I (22OV) entry level system is configured with two 360 kbyte, S/4 in, double density floppy disc drives, a 256 kbyte RAM, two serial ports and a parallel printer port. Each system is supplied with both MS/DOS 2.11 and GWiBasic 2.0. Many of the features that are avail- able on the IBM PC are also incorporated in the Wysepc single board design. These in- clude a floppy disc controller, monochrome display adapter

and three I/O ports. Model WY-1101-2 (220V) is

the IBM PC/XT compatible product in the Wysepc family. This system includes a ten Mbyte Winchester disc drive and a hard disc controller.

Both microcomputers are available with a colour gra- phics option (&795) plus other options including a real-time clock calendar, battery backup etc. The WY-1101-l costs &1925 and the WY-1101-2 costs &3 545.

Fully compatible software for the microcomputers in- cludes Lotus l-2-3, Sym- phony, dBase II, and Multi- plan. (Wyse Technology, 3040

North First St, San Jose, CA 95134, USA. Tel: (408) 946

3075) 0

the Workbench facilitates con- version because it allows OS/ VS COBOL and VS COBOL syn- tax to coexist in a single pro-

gram. The Workbench also allows

compilation and testing of pro- grams that access mainframe

database managementidata communications software such as IMS, CICS, DLIl, SQLiDS and DB2.

Productivity can be in- creased by the use of Micrc

Focus’s Animator tool which enables programming work from the host to be moved to distributed micro computer workstations.

The software is at present available in the USA and UK only. It supports the IBM PC/AT, XT and 3270~PC and the rental costs El25 per month per workstation. (Micro

Focus Inc., 2465 East Bayshore

Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94303, USA. Tel: (41.5) 856 4161. Micro Focus Ltd, 26 West St, Newbury, Berks RG13 IJT,

UK. Tel: (0635) 32646) 0

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