Re: programming language genealogy

Steve,

>So RPG was a language on the mainframe before it was used on the mini
>systems?  

How many mini-computers do you know of in 1961?

>I think the addition of CALL was the big leap forward for RPG.  

It was but one of the many features introduced with RPG III.  That is also when
we got externally described files, subfiles, full-procedural files, IF and other
"structured" operation codes, *INxx as a variable name or array, yada, yada.

>>I'll give you the /free argument <g>
>
>I dont.  ...  /free was a bit step
>forward because it added a lot of procedure call features to the mix while
>retaining the OS related stuff.

Huh?  /free did nothing of the sort.  It added no procedure call features I can
think of except making the Callp opcode optional.

Perhaps you are thinking of when subprocedure support was added to RPG IV, but
that wasn't even at the same time as when RPG IV was introduced on V3 CICS
machines.  Subprocedure support was concurrently added in V3R2 (the last CISC
release) and V3R6 (the first RISC release).

Doug