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A Collection of COBOL Compilers for Windows Users

This is a collection of COBOL Compilers primarily for use on Windows systems. I have included some documentation, where possible. In addition, packages contain documentation at varying levels of thoroughness, which you will see when you expand the archives in which they are stored. Naturally, I cannot give assurances about the suitability of any package for a particular purpose.

You will need one of the commonly available unzip utilities, such as PKUNZIP or WinZip or other program, depending on the type of archive.

Here are the compilers that are included:

• COBOL Compilers for Windows Users

• COBOL12 - A 16-bit COBOL compiler that runs under DOS or Windows. The compiler was originally based on Ansi74, but has evolved. It does not include some features such as SORT and STRING, but it has many extensions. Indexed sequential files are supported by the standard COBOL statements for these files, and by the provision of the BTRIEVE indexed file system. Two modules are included to provide the program interface to the screen. The Format Module provides the ability to display a Windows-like screen appearance. Ascii strings are included in the program to define the screens and the module employs the graphical facility of mode 12H to format the screen. The Screen Module provides a comprehensive input-output facility for the program, including mouse actions, option buttons, function keys, and Alt keys. The package includes a compiler, a linker and an IDE front end, and a reference manual.

• OpenCOBOL - A COBOL compiler that implements a substantial part of the COBOL 85 and COBOL 2002 standards, as well as many popular extensions. OpenCOBOL translates COBOL into C and compiles the translated code using GCC. You can build your COBOL programs on various platforms, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft 32-bit Windows systems. Windows users can use the GCC compiler from the MinGW package, which is included separately on this CD. The OpenCOBOL compiler is licensed under GNU General Public License. The run-time library is licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License.

• Fujitsu COBOL Version 3 for Students Fujitsu promises that this compiler will run on Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0; in fact, it seems to run on later versions of Windows as well. In Fujitsu COBOL Version 3 for students both ODBC connectivity and optimization are disabled. It complies with ANSI Standard COBOL X3.23 1985, ISO-1989-1985 specifications, and is compatibile with OS/VS COBOL, VS COBOL II and Micro Focus COBOL. It has an embedded SQL preprocessor and an embedded COBOL report writer. It is equipped with an IDE, a full function COBOL GUI Source Code Debugger, and a Micro Focus Conversion Utility. Fujitsu says they will provide “getting started with Fujitsu COBOL” support for students using Fujitsu COBOL Version 3, but not “standard telephone or email support” for this product.

• Tiny COBOL Compiler - A COBOL compiler designed to implement the COBOL 85 standard, in reference to the ISO 1985, ISO 1989-1 (Intrinsic Function Module), ANSI X3.23-1985, ANSI X3.23a-1989 (Intrinsic Function Module), X/Open XPG3 (COBOL programming languages extensions). It has, in addition, the ability to read/write from standard input/output/error, read command line parameters, read environment variables, set a file name at runtime, and return a program exit code to the invoking process. It generates Intel x84 assembly language code, and works together with the GNU assembler to generate binaries. The compiler is licensed under the GNU General Public License. The run time libraries are licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License.

COBOL650 - An old MSDOS COBOL compiler that comes with some documentation. It conforms with the ANSI COBOL-74 standard although it does not implement the sort/merge feature. It generates OBJ files, so to produce executable programs it will be necessary to use a linker. Two different linkers are included on the CD.

• MinGW - A native Win32 port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), with import libraries and header files for building native Windows applications; includes extensions to the MSVC runtime to support C99 functionality. This package is included for use with some of the COBOL compilers that compile into “C” or assembler as a first compilation phase.

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Research:

• COBOL compiler on DuckDuckGo
• COBOL compiler on O'Reilly
• COBOL compiler on GitHub
• COBOL compiler on Reddit
• COBOL compiler on StackOverflow
• COBOL compiler on YouTube