Banks scramble to fix old systems as IT 'cowboys' ride into sunset

Reuters ^ | 10 April 2017 | Anna Irrera

[dfwgator]

[bar sin·is·ter]

I hearrrd you had a wirus?

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

It’s not their COBOL skills in demand it’s their backround and knowledge of all the jobs, systems and infrastructure that’s in demand.

[dfwgator]

I remember the old joke.

What’s a S0C4?

To keep your feet warm.

[The Great RJ]

A good friend is one of the dying breed of COBOL programmers and works for a large insurance company. I still can’t believe these COBOL running computer dinosaurs are still around. Maybe I should dust off my my 50 year old experience programming in FORTRAN

[Donnafrflorida]

Large old system with very high volume of data.
Most remediated.. Lots of mainframes still around.

[meadsjn]

Successful software development projects should be called the eighth wonder of the world—there is a rumor they exist somewhere but they sure are hard to find.

Ain't that the truth.

[Kommodor]

Naw, that would be Ada.

[GingisK]

I guess you get the PICTURE.

[freedumb2003]

>>It’s not their COBOL skills in demand it’s their backround and knowledge of all the jobs, systems and infrastructure that’s in demand.<<

You mean “Space Cowboys” wasn’t based on real events???

:)

[djf]

There has been a moderate resurgence of the mainframe.

I’m an old dino myself, just finished up an almost 20 year contract. Taking a bit of time off then do it again!

[KosmicKitty]

I taught COBOL up until 8 years ago. Hartford, CT was the insurance company of the world and our students could find jobs as COBOL programmers.

[duckman]

I was an IBM lifer, coded in Assembler Language, for applications and systems back in the 70’s / 80’s. Also COBOL/PL/1 and PL/S. Fun stuff coding back then, especially when we received 3270 CRT instead of using punched cards. Miss those days.

[PA Engineer]

Let me know when FORTRAN makes a big comeback!

LOL. I was thinking the same thing.

[duckman]

‘What’s a S0C4?’
Brings back memories. If I recall an 0’charlie’4 was a protection exception. Your code was trying to go into ‘protected’ memory. Got plenty of them in Assembler. Don’t think it is possible in a High Level Language. I remember taking over code from a ‘sharp’ programmer. He had a problem modifying instruction ‘op’ codes and thought it was cute. Especially when he never placed comments next to the adjacent Assembler code. Not so funny. Do you remember B37’s.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

They had to dig out their old plastic Flow Chart Templates, Grid Paper and Coding Pads.

I had a dent in my right index finger for years from filling those coding pads. The Key Punch girls always appreciated neat writers for punching up the card decks.

I can’t think of any more old cliche’s.

[freedumb2003]

>>Do you remember B37’s.<<

Out of space (logical IIRC).

C7s?

[duckman]

‘C7?’
Hex Rep of Character ‘Y’? If not help.

[freedumb2003]

Data exception — you could force it by the following:

03 FORCE-ABORT-SW-NUM PIC 9(01).
03 FORCE-ABORT-SW-CHAR REDEFINES FORCE-ABORT-SW-NUM
PIC X(01).
.
.
MOVE ‘X’ TO FORCE-ABORT-SW-CHAR.
ADD 1 TO FORCE-ABORT-SW-NUM.

It was how we forced programs to abort on purpose when something went wrong.

You could get it if you read a record that had bad data in a field (char where numeric expected). When you looked on the dump it almost always pointed to the ZAP (Zero and Add Packed) instruction which told you it was COBOL trying to do an ADD.

Wow, it is all coming back to me...

[BoringGuy]

There was a time in my life when I believed B37 was invented to ensure I got a 2:30 am wakeup call each weeknight.