IBM MVS - Editing, compiling and executing a Cobol program - M2

This video explains how to edit, compile and execute a Cobol program, and how to check out the output in the JES2 spool.

[darren]

Superb video! - I was a mainframe operator of IBM 3090's (not a programmer) and running 1000's of overnight batch jobs all interdependent upon each other! Running a scratch-list to free up tapes or cartridges for use too! those were the days - just recently stumbled across Hercules and TK4 so I'm enjoying this immensely - thanks for posting these videos!

[Learnerofthings]

Got MVS installed and just received my Comprehensive Structured COBOL (Popkin) in the mail. Learning the mainframe navigation is fun, but slow lol.

[grappydingus]

THANKS! As a hobbyist who wants to play with mainframes, I love this!

[rjfear]

Thank you. So many years of mainframe work. I thought I had forgotten. Now I have one just for me.

[lander]

Great Tutorial, Maximum number you can search for is 32767, also I made the changes to lines 620, 640, & 1350 as mentioned in another comment below. To Print the Output from the spool put an o in the s column and a queue # in the q column(usually an A), or put a p in the s column to purge.

[oliveruecker]

Very excited about this video. Will install this, too. That's because of having so much fun in programming on serveral platforms. MVS is completely new for me.
As you mentioned the 4381 I immediately remembered the time as I was support technician at ECONOOM (later Thomainfor). I've exchanged 3370 (FBA) HDA's connected to the 4381.
Normal operations for me were midrange computers like the /38 and AS/400.; so changing the HDA on the mainframe was different - you needed the maintenance devive from IBM to to this.
Later on I've learned
Until the early 2000s I was SE at EMC Corporation for AS/400 and UNIX systems.
I've seen the config-files for our Symmetrix for IBM mainframe. All CKD devices with the size of 3GB emulating the 3380 DASD. Shook my head. One physical disk on Symmetrix could hold many of that chunks of 3GB....

[bmustiata]

moshix, just wanted to thank you for your videos. They are outstanding. You cleared a lot of fog in my understanding of some of the COBOL language decisions, after just trying to edit and run it in MVS. Thank you!

[risajajr]

Your MVS videos are fantastic! I was a COBOL/CICS programmer ~25 years ago and have recently been wanting to reclaim some of that lost knowledge and here you are with these videos. Thanks for producing them!

One question: shouldn't it be possible to put the source code for whichever language you are working in into its own file/member and then reference that in the JCL? I know we didn't put our code inline in the JCL.

Edit: To answer my own question: yes, it's very possible. You would add a jcl card like this:
//COB.SYSIN DD DSN=HERC01.TEST.CODE(MYCOBOL), DISP=SHR

[matthiasendler]

Thank you so much, to share your knowledge with us! You just made my day... Fun fact, the COBOL compiler is seven months older than me ;)

[filipsjostrand]

Big thank you for this channel. Superb!

[massimommm]

very, very, very good video.
i'm falling in love with mvs!
I worked on os390 in 1998/2000, as a jcl, cics, cobol programmer.
I hate cobol, but i love mainframes.

[KarthikRampur-qltd]

Hi moshix, thanks for the great yet simple tutorial on how to run COBOL programs.could u pls make some more videos on jcl and vsam as well.It would help us a lot.

[billb]

After a little break recently decided to get back into IBM mainframes and this was a great intro video to get the feel for MVS, especially for a programmer. This time, I decided to concentrate on MVS rather than what I used at work...DOS/SP/VSE/ESA etc. Tk4- and therefore MVS is much more usable, IMHO, than the various DOS systems I've found on the Internet which always seems to require another patch/zap/PTF to make something work. Maybe I just didn't find the right packs. Anywho great video. I'd like to add PF10/PF11 (which I discovered by accident while reaching for another key)...shift display left/right, to the 3 main PF keys you suggested. Very useful for looking at print screen output, and perhaps some datasets

[anitam]

Thank you for this video to compile and run a COBOL program. Do you have a video that demonstrates how to compile into a load library? And, of course, the JCL to run a program from the load library.

[billb]

Minor point. If you change the following 3 lines in the Cobol program, the output will line up nicely!
620 02 SHOWIT PIC OCCURS 15.
640 02 OUT-LINE PIC X(120).
1350 IF J GREATER 15

[Texasman-ii]

Thanks like always excellent video
Thanks for all info

[amandakleisnerova]

COBOL is most ellegant language ever !

[SINCMENTARIS]

Very educative videos! I notice that an abend (S806) happens if the EXEC step has PGM=COBUCG. One needs to omit the PGM= in order to preclude the job from abending. By contrast, in the video on JCL Hello World program, the EXEC step succeeds with PGM=IEBGENER. Why is that?

[dinnerandashow]

Logging into a IBM mainframe was different than logging into a UNIX.
A lot of things were menu driven and IBM took the effort to make it look nice.
So easier than a UNIX.

[argonwheatbelly]

From the queue, use "o a" to route "O"utput to "A", the 1403 printer.