On 3/14/22 19:53, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
Saw a note on the GCC list that I thought some here might find interesting: it
announces the existence (not quite done but getting there) of a COBOL language
front end for GCC. Interesting. For those who deal in legacy COBOL
applications that want a more modern platform, I wonder if this might be a good
way to get there. Run old COBOL dusty decks on Linux, yeah...
I rejuvenated some old Pascal programs using the FPC (Free
Pascal Compiler) that is basically the same idea. It was
designed to take Borland Turbo Pascal and DEC Pascal
extensions, and did quite well with it.
In 1996 I built a laser photoplotter and wrote a Turbo
Pascal program to convert Gerber photoplotter language to
raster strips and run the plotter directly off the PC with a
DMA card. That computer was getting REALLY old, and I was
worried about keeping it working, so I migrated the plotting
to a Beagle Bone with the PRU microcontroller emulating the
DMA card. Then, I migrated the Gerber-raster converter
program to FPC and cleaned it up a bit.
Jon
