Re: RPG on OS/390

Little history lesson.  IBM came out with SAA or System Application 
Architecture.  If a language wasn't stamped as "SAA compliant", and could 
run on what is now broken down into zSeries, iSeries and xSeries, then it 
would be dropped.  We actually converted a PC based system from Pascal 
based on this information.  (That executive has since moved on.)  RPG was, 
and is, really popular on the AS/400 so they couldn't drop it.  So they 
had to come out with a version of RPG for the mainframes.  However they 
wanted RPG only.  They did not want to support any screens because they 
did not want to have to bring the external screen definitions over from 
the 400.  I don't think they even supported the primitive screens for 
RPGII commonly used on the S/36.  They did not support external file 
definitions.  And the price for this crippled up compiler was originally 
$199,000.  So, "technically", by having a version of RPG (however 
crippled) on the mainframe, they had made RPG "SAA compliant".  Now, to 
write "SAA compliant" RPG code you had to write it down to that level. 
Which I don't think anyone knowingly attempted to do on the 400 (unless it 
truly was an internally defined printer report only).

DOS/VS RPG II 1.3.0   5746-RG1 
OS/VS RPG II Compiler 1.1.0   5740-RG1 

I do see the word "interactive" mentioned at
http://www-306.ibm.com/common/ssi/fcgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=dd&subtype=sm&appname=ShopzSeries&htmlfid=877/ENUS5746-RG1
It's a 13 year old link, but what the hey.


Rob Berendt