STL Time Machine Report #16 - Sun 10 May 1998 (1998-05-10) Group Two Time Machine testing has been successfully completed. An additional test was scheduled to verify a fix for a program problem. It turned out to be a coding error in the setup for windowing a date, prior to subtracting one from the year. The Test Facility LPAR has been turned over to technical services so they can level the operating system (apply any maintenance that has previously been applied to the production LPAR). They are also installing JES2 V5.2.2 (Job Entry Subsystem). This will fix a cosmetic date reporting problem that showed up on hardcopy job separator pages. Group Three will begin around June 1, and includes Unix machines. My application continues to be run in the Time Machine, as an infrastructure application. Group Four internal testing is planned for August and September. COBOL and LE/MVS One of my co-workers forwarded a CICS newsletter to me. It's published on the internet by Bob Yelavich (yelavich AT ibm.net). This name may mean something to long-time IBM'ers. He included an article by George Hoyer of IBM (gfhoyer AT vnet.ibm.com) on "COBOL Confusion". I found this most interesting because George Hoyer says IBM will support BOTH the VS COBOL II 4.0 Compiler AND Runtime Library until 2001-03-31, even though these products were withdrawn from marketing on 1997-06-30. No date has been announced for withdrawal of support for IBM COBOL for MVS and VM version 1.2, LE/MVS Release 5, or IBM COBOL for OS/390 and VM Version 2.1. Support for OS/VS COBOL (5740-CB1) was withdrawn 1996-06-30. Support for ANS COBOL Version 4 (5734-CB2) was withdrawn 1981-03-31. In the future, the only supported COBOL products will be: IBM COBOL for MVS and VM (5688-197) IBM COBOL for OS/390 and VM (5648-A25) IBM Language Environment for MVS and VM (5688-198) The only supported releases of CICS according to Mr. Hoyer are: CICS/ESA Version 4.1 CICS Transaction Server of OS/390 Release 1 CICS 4.1 will continue to support programs compiled with earlier COBOL compilers, provided a supported runtime environment is used. I don't have any information on corresponding products for IBM VSE/ESA. CICS 4.1/ACF2 6.1 Performance problems The problem seems to be that we need to apply performance-related maintenance patches to both the third-party security access package and CICS 4.1 itself. We need CICS 4.1 for Y2K compliance. High-Level Assembler This issue is not going away. Our tech services people are insisting there's a problem. I agree, but it's not a Year 2000 compliance problem. One well-placed observer suggested to me that tech services doesn't have the budget or manpower to upgrade all the old assembler programs, so they want to get it combined into the Y2K project. I can't judge how true this observation is, but it's possible. Basically, technical services is arguing that any assembler program originally built with an older assembler may fail even if it has NO date logic. They have found a couple of older programs that don't work with the current release of the operating system, but it's not due to date-related problems. Some old programs refer to operating system services/access methods that are no longer supported. Miscellaneous Stuff Media awareness is increasing. I have added a page of Y2k links to my web site, including a pointer to Pam Hystad's FAQ, Rick Cowles's Electric Utilities page, and a page with all of Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Reports. At one point I was thinking it might be nice to offer some date routines for free download, but there might be some copyright or proprietary issues involved with that. In any event, if you have some suggestions please let me know. Previous Time Machine Reports are available at: http://home.att.net/~arnold.trembley/tmr.htm STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I am NOT an official corporate spokesperson. My opinions should not be held against my benevolent employer. -- Arnold Trembley http://home.att.net/~arnold.trembley/ "Y2K? Because Centuries Happen!"