This was a very well done and informative video! I've done COBOL as part of an IBM challenge over Christmas break during college. Love videos that look at the history of programming. You deserve more views and subscribers.
I did Cobol at college in the 1980... we didn't use punch cards though... but still your journey through the DATA DIVISION is wonderfully nostalgic.... In the 1970s, my sister's tights (pantyhose) would come wound around a card about the size of a punch card... ocassionally she would get a pair wrapped around an actual punchcard... They were a very special collection for me and were one of the first steps on the road to becoming the nerd I am today.
I learned COBOL in the 70s and wrote it for several years. You are correct about // in colums 1 - 2. That is JCL that defines job, files in and out, and programs run. Filler is a special field name meaning ignore these columns, and SYSOUT=A is a special dsname meaning a printed report.
The colors or style of the card are just cards used from different batches of blank cards. They have no meaning. As a program evolves it is typical to punch a new blank card and replace the original card. The holes on the card were the Hollereth code. Herman Hollereth developed this code for back in 1888. He developed these cards for the 1890 census. The code describes a method for all alphabetic and numeric characters. The 1 top rows at the top 2 were called zone punches. The zone punch above the 0 was called the 11 punch. The punch at the top was called the 12 punch. The card edges were called the 9 edge, for the bottom, and 12 edge for the top. Card readers would have a little sign that would say "face down, 9 edge" to indicate how the cards had to be placed in the reader. So in effect you could have a 12 bit number punched in the card. But you would never do that as it would weaken the card and it could jamb some readers. The Hollereth code was developed as to not have too many holes pumched in a column just for that reason The JCL looks like it was for OS/360. In 1976 in an IBM mainframe there was DOS, OS, BPT, TOS. I began my career on 407 untir record equipment then to a 1401, 360, 370, 4300 series, 3090 as well as IBM Series-1 mini. I worked on all above mentioned operstinf systems. Fun fact: COBOL-D had NO perform clause. I also wrote miceocode for the 360. The microcode was stored on special plastic punch cards that could be punched on a regular keypunch machine and placed between air bags within the CPU. I wrote in ASSEMBLY for decades ans would read 3,000 page core dumps to let COBOL programmers know what the error was in thier code
I buy a lot of random old interesting this like these cards just because I find them interesting. It is on my to-do list to try compiling this program, but I have to many things on my to-do list. Maybe I'll get around to it some day...
The idea of there being a modern Cobol compiler fills me with mirth.... but it looks like a lot of the stuff in the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION is a bit IBM 360 specific that would have be changed. Unless you had an emulator... but that wouldn't be the modern compiler that filled me with mirth in the first place.
@@edgeeffect I think it could be easily fixed to run. The data division they didn't use any optimizations, so the program should work pretty easily. You'd need to reverse engineer the input files of course, but overall should be trivial.
Very cool. My grandpa used COBOL. I have a photo of him with a computer the size of the room.
This was a very well done and informative video! I've done COBOL as part of an IBM challenge over Christmas break during college. Love videos that look at the history of programming. You deserve more views and subscribers.
Thank you for the kind words :)
I did Cobol at college in the 1980... we didn't use punch cards though... but still your journey through the DATA DIVISION is wonderfully nostalgic....
In the 1970s, my sister's tights (pantyhose) would come wound around a card about the size of a punch card... ocassionally she would get a pair wrapped around an actual punchcard... They were a very special collection for me and were one of the first steps on the road to becoming the nerd I am today.
I learned COBOL in the 70s and wrote it for several years. You are correct about // in colums 1 - 2. That is JCL that defines job, files in and out, and programs run.
Filler is a special field name meaning ignore these columns, and SYSOUT=A is a special dsname meaning a printed report.
The colors or style of the card are just cards used from different batches of blank cards. They have no meaning. As a program evolves it is typical to punch a new blank card and replace the original card.
The holes on the card were the Hollereth code. Herman Hollereth developed this code for back in 1888. He developed these cards for the 1890 census. The code describes a method for all alphabetic and numeric characters. The 1 top rows at the top 2 were called zone punches. The zone punch above the 0 was called the 11 punch. The punch at the top was called the 12 punch. The card edges were called the 9 edge, for the bottom, and 12 edge for the top. Card readers would have a little sign that would say "face down, 9 edge" to indicate how the cards had to be placed in the reader. So in effect you could have a 12 bit number punched in the card. But you would never do that as it would weaken the card and it could jamb some readers. The Hollereth code was developed as to not have too many holes pumched in a column just for that reason
The JCL looks like it was for OS/360. In 1976 in an IBM mainframe there was DOS, OS, BPT, TOS.
I began my career on 407 untir record equipment then to a 1401, 360, 370, 4300 series, 3090 as well as IBM Series-1 mini. I worked on all above mentioned operstinf systems.
Fun fact: COBOL-D had NO perform clause.
I also wrote miceocode for the 360. The microcode was stored on special plastic punch cards that could be punched on a regular keypunch machine and placed between air bags within the CPU.
I wrote in ASSEMBLY for decades ans would read 3,000 page core dumps to let COBOL programmers know what the error was in thier code
it s a great part of our history 👏👏👏
😆 That's really fascinating.
Why did you get these in the first place?
Have you tried typing and running this code with a modern COBOL compiler?
I buy a lot of random old interesting this like these cards just because I find them interesting. It is on my to-do list to try compiling this program, but I have to many things on my to-do list. Maybe I'll get around to it some day...
For anyone else reading these comments, I just noticed that @HackVlix also has some technical videos, so be sure to check out his videos as well.
@@RobertElderSoftware 🤗
The idea of there being a modern Cobol compiler fills me with mirth.... but it looks like a lot of the stuff in the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION is a bit IBM 360 specific that would have be changed. Unless you had an emulator... but that wouldn't be the modern compiler that filled me with mirth in the first place.
@@edgeeffect I think it could be easily fixed to run. The data division they didn't use any optimizations, so the program should work pretty easily. You'd need to reverse engineer the input files of course, but overall should be trivial.