z390, zCOBOL, and zCICS: What It Is, What’s New, and What's Next

Project and Program: Application Architecture Development and Integration, Application Development Integration and Infrastructure

Tags: Proceedings , 2013 , SHARE in San Francisco 2013

We will give an overview of z390, zCOBOL, and zCICS, including an introduction of the packages for those who are unfamiliar with them, and the new zCOBOL "U" debugger. We will also discuss the future of the projects. Upon Don Higgins' retirement from active programming, a team of developers is taking over the project. New project administrators are M. Ray Mullins of Cat Herder Software, LLC, and Abe F. Kornelis of B.V. Bixoft. z390 is a portable mainframe compatible macro assembler, linker, and emulator which run on Windows ® and UNIX ®-based systems using J2SE Java runtime. z390 can be downloaded and installed using InstallShield for Windows and includes documentation, regression tests, and lots of demos. z390 includes support for common z/OS and  z/VSE system macros plus QSAM, VSAM, EXEC CICS, and SOA client and server support over TCP/IP networks. It even emulates running under the Fujitsu BS2000/OSD assembler. zCOBOL is a portable mainframe COBOL compiler written in structured conditional macro assembler using z390 extensions.  The zCOBOL compiler supports multiple dialects of mainframe COBOL and generates HLASM mainframe assembler source code with data labels and paragraph names which can be assembled, linked, and executed using the z390 emulator.  A number of regression tests are included. zCICS is a portable CICS transaction processing sub-system written in z390 assembler which supports local and remote TN3270 terminals on a TCP/IP network executing EXEC CICS assembler and zcobol transactions.  z390 includes TN3270 emulation and uses J2SE sockets. A number of regression tests and examples of assembler and zCOBOL transaction programs are included and can be run without any other software requirements once J2SE and z390 are installed on Windows or Linux. Come to this session to learn about z390, zCOBOL, and zCICS, their present status, and future plansVisit www.z390.org for latest updates and download links. M. Ray Mullins ; Cat Herder Software, LLC

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