Customers making a move from the HP 3000 to another platform are getting a tool to carry application code, as Orbit released Cobol2C, a converter that translates COBOL II to gcc C++. The translator creates C++ code “that is functionally equivalent to the COBOL code,” according to company officials. “The generated code relies on gcc extensions to the C++ language. This code can be compiled to object code on any platform that supports the gcc compiler.” Moving applications out of HP’s COBOL can be a transitionary step, since the gcc C++ is also supported on the HP 3000 itself; support is available for the gcc compiler, used inside HP’s labs, from Allegro Consultants.

The Orbit translator supports the 3000’s COBOL specifics in some measure, including $SET and $IF, $INCLUDE, $CONTROL SUBPROGRAM, $CONTROL DYNAMIC, $CONTROL ANSISUB, RANDOM files, the macro pre-processor, EXAMINE and TALLY, .LOC. and .LENGTH. A future release of the product will include support for the SCREEN section of COBOL, which is not even supported in COBOL II. Orbit is also working on the MPE intrinsic interface, but long pointer parameters will not be supported. Other $CONTROL options and $commands are ignored. The converter comes with a support library for handling all COBOL data types, also supporting sequential, random, relative and indexed file access. The library also handles many complex procedure statements.