Conversational Programming System or CPS is an early

Time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the Concurrency (computer science), concurrent sharing of a computing resource among many tasks or users by giving each Process (computing), task or User (computing), user a small slice of CPU time, processing time. ...

system offered by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

which runs on

System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applicati ...

mainframes A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

''circa'' 1967 through 1972 in a partition of

OS/360 OS/360, officially known as IBM System/360 Operating System, is a discontinued batch processing operating system developed by IBM for their then-new System/360 mainframe computer, announced in 1964; it was influenced by the earlier IBSYS/IBJOB a ...

Release 17 MFT II or MVT or above. CPS is implemented as an

interpreter Interpreting is translation from a spoken or signed language into another language, usually in real time to facilitate live communication. It is distinguished from the translation of a written text, which can be more deliberative and make use o ...

, and users can select either a rudimentary form of

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 ...

or a reasonably complete version of

PL/I PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced and sometimes written PL/1) is a procedural, imperative computer programming language initially developed by IBM. It is designed for scientific, engineering, business and system programming. It has b ...

. A third option provides

remote job entry Remote job entry, or Remote Batch, is the procedure for sending requests for non-interactive data processing tasks ( jobs) to mainframe computers from remote workstations, and by extension the process of receiving the output from such jobs at a re ...

(RJE) features allowing users to submit JCL

job stream In a non-interactive computer system, particularly IBM mainframes, a job stream, jobstream, or simply job is the sequence of job control language statements (JCL) and data (called ''instream data'') that comprise a single "unit of work for an ope ...

s for batch processing. A fourth option is called control mode. Normally, only the system operator would be permitted to use control mode. The available features in control mode include: *Send a message to an individual user or all users. *Clobber a specific user's interpreter environment. *Monitor the activity of an individual user. *Terminate the entire CPS system. CPS provides a highly interactive user experience. It accomplishes this by giving an immediate

syntax error In computer science, a syntax error is an error in the syntax of a sequence of characters that is intended to be written in a particular programming language. For compiled languages, syntax errors are detected at compile-time. A program will no ...

(when necessary) as soon as each line of a program is entered. CPS was also offered with a firmware-assisted interpreter, on the

IBM System/360 Model 50 The IBM System/360 Model 50 is a member of the IBM System/360 family of computers. The Model 50 was announced in April 1964 with the other initial models of the family, and first shipped in August 1965 to the Bank of America. Models There are fo ...

, only, but few Model 50 installations elected to install this RPQ. This RPQ executed the ''EVAL'' function of CPS's programming stack using a firmware assist. The IBM-released version of CPS was designed to run on the

IBM 1050 IBM 1050 Data Communications System is a computer terminal subsystem to send data to and receive data from another 1050 subsystem or IBM computer in the IBM 1400, IBM 7000 or System/360 series. It first became available in 1963 and was used wid ...

terminal and the

IBM 2741 The IBM 2741 is a printing computer terminal that was introduced in 1965. Compared to the teletypewriter machines that were commonly used as printing terminals at the time, the 2741 offers 50% higher speed, much higher quality printing, quieter op ...

terminal with the "

break Break or Breaks or The Break may refer to: Time off from duties * Recess (break), time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties * Break (work), time off during a shift/recess ** Coffee break, a short mid-morning rest ...

feature". User groups later added support for the

IBM 2260 The text-only Monochrome monitor, monochrome IBM 2260 cathode-ray tube (CRT) video display terminal (Display Station) plus computer keyboard, keyboard was a 1964 predecessor to the more-powerful IBM 3270 terminal line which eventually was extended ...

video display terminal. CPS support for the IBM 2741 "break feature" most likely influenced the eventual user group support for the "break feature" and the IBM 1050 terminal on

IBM Administrative Terminal System The IBM Administrative Terminal System (ATS/360) provided text- and data-management tools for working with documents to users of IBM System/360 systems. An earlier version ran on an IBM 1440 or IBM 1460 Data Processing System and the IBM Service ...

(ATS/360), as many IBM customers which operated CPS also operated ATS/360. CPS was ultimately superseded by TSO. An IBM

program product Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

was offered which provided limited CPS functionality under

Time Sharing Option Time Sharing Option (TSO) is an interactive time-sharing environment for IBM mainframe operating systems, including OS/360 MVT, OS/VS2 (SVS), MVS, OS/390, and z/OS. Use In computing, time-sharing is a design technique that allows many peop ...

(TSO), intended mainly as a "bridge" between CPS and TSO.

References

External links

*
Conversational Programming System (CPS) development at computerhistory.org
IBM software Time-sharing {{Programming-software-stub

See also

References

External links