Return to FAQs, COBOL

Why is so much of COBOL in uppercase - COBOL uppercase:

“That's because the first COBOL compiler was introduced in 1961. At that time there is no SMALL LETTER in the computer keyboard.” “Try coding a COBOL program in all lower-case. You wont find any error. Its not a COBOL coding convention.” “For a long time many printers only printed in upper-case characters.”

“ANSI-68 COBOL introduced a facility to type in Small Letters also. But Small letters are not in COBOL character set even now. So if you type in small letter, it's treated as the equivalent capital letter ASCII code” (really EBCIDIC) “by the COBOL compiler.” COBOL is not case sensitive.

“The real reason was that the printers and the other equipment of the time made so much noise that the COBOL developers had to SHOUT.” Fair Use Source: https://ibmmainframes.com/about2685.html