Business Controls Corporation is a privately held computer company
that developed an
application-program-generator and also a series of
accounting software packages. These packages were widely enough used for various business magazines to have back-of-the-book ads for companies seeking accountants with experience in one or more of them.
Computer magazines ran coverage for their SB-5 application-program-generator as from time to time new versions were released, each with new or improved features.
Early days
The company's initial offerings were packages for the
DEC PDP-8, although Business Controls Corporation also wrote custom-written programs for customers.
Large customers with mainframes who also used smaller systems for departmental use and distributed processing also used BCC's services.
SB-5
The addition of an
application-program-generator named SB-5 that, from specifications, could generate
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 ...
code was a major step forward.
Although this began with supporting the
DEC PDP-11, they subsequently began to support COBOL on DEC's
DECsystem-10
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...
&
DECSYSTEM-20
The DECSYSTEM-20 was a 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer running the TOPS-20 operating system (products introduced in 1977).
PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled ''DECsystem-10'' as a ...
.
support came later.
The specifications also permitted COBOL inserts and overrides: SB-5 could build an application that was all COBOL, yet only code the portions that varied from BCC's "vanilla" accounting packages.
[
]
Similar offerings
A similar idea was done for the IBM mainframe world in the form of a series of application-program-generators from Dylakor Corporation. They were named DYL-250, DYL-260, DYL-270 & DYL-280. Dylakor was acquired by Computer Associates
CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product p ...
.
The specific syntax was different, but it had wider use, and - a mark of success and recognition in the industry - syntax-compatible implementations were released by a competitor.
Still another alternative was Peat Marwick Mitchell
KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations.
Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a ne ...
's PMM2170 application-program-generator package. Like the others, it supported COBOL inserts and overrides.
Extended integration
Business Controls Corporation subsequently extended SB-5's feature set to provide support for System 1022
Tymnet was an international data communications network headquartered in Cupertino, California that used virtual call packet-switched technology and X.25, SNA/ SDLC, BSC and Async interfaces to connect host computers (servers) at thousands of lar ...
, a product for the DEC-10
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, especi ...
& DEC-20
The DECSYSTEM-20 was a 36-bit Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer running the TOPS-20 operating system (products introduced in 1977).
PDP-10 computers running the TOPS-10 operating system were labeled ''DECsystem-10'' as a ...
;
References
Procedural programming languages
OpenVMS software
Programming tools
Source code generation
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