DIBOL or Digital's Business Oriented Language is a general-purpose, procedural,

imperative programming language In computer science, imperative programming is a programming paradigm of software that uses statements that change a program's state. In much the same way that the imperative mood in natural languages expresses commands, an imperative program con ...

that was designed for use in

Management Information Systems A management information system (MIS) is an information system used for decision-making, and for the coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organization. The study of the management information systems involves peo ...

(MIS) software development. It was developed from 1970 to 1993. DIBOL has a syntax similar to FORTRAN and

BASIC Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

, along with

BCD BCD may refer to: Computing * Binary-coded decimal, a representation of decimal digits in binary ** BCD (character encoding), a 6-bit superset of binary-coded decimal derived from the binary encoding of the same name * Boot Configuration Data, th ...

arithmetic. It shares the

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

program structure of separate data and procedure divisions. Unlike Fortran's numeric labels (for GOTO), DIBOL's were alphanumeric; the language supported a counterpart to computed goto.

History

DIBOL was originally marketed by

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

(DEC) in 1970. The original version, DIBOL-8, was produced for

PDP-8 The PDP-8 is a family of 12-bit minicomputers that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the first commercially successful minicomputer, with over 50,000 units sold during the model's lifetime. Its basic design follows the pi ...

systems running COS-300. The PDP-8-like DECmate II, supports the COS-310 Commercial Operating System, featuring DIBOL. DIBOL-11 was developed for the

PDP-11 The PDP–11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers originally sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the late 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of a ...

running COS-350 operating system. It also ran on RSX-11, RT-11, and from 1978 on

RSTS/E RSTS () is a multi-user time-sharing operating system developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC, now part of Hewlett-Packard) for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers. The first version of RSTS (RSTS-11, #Versions, Version 1) was implem ...

. DIBOL-32 runs on VMS systems, although it can also be used on other systems through

emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run sof ...

ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organiz ...

Standards were released in 1983, 1988 and 1992 (ANSI X3.165-1992). The 1992 standard was revised in 2002. DIBOL compilers were developed by several other companies, including DBL from DISC (later Synergex), Softbol from Omtool, and Unibol from Software Ireland, Ltd. Development of DIBOL effectively ceased after 1993, when an agreement between DEC and DISC replaced DIBOL with DBL on

OpenVMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Op ...

Digital UNIX Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

, and

SCO Unix Xinuos OpenServer, previously SCO UNIX and SCO Open Desktop (SCO ODT), is a closed source computer operating system developed by Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), later acquired by SCO Group, and now owned by Xinuos. Early versions of OpenServer were ...

References

Reading

* * {{Digital Equipment Corporation Procedural programming languages OpenVMS software Programming languages created in 1970 Programming languages Digital Equipment Corporation

History

See also

References

Reading