SabreTalk
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SabreTalk is a discontinued dialect of PL/I for the S/360 IBM mainframes running the TPF platform. SabreTalk was developed jointly by American Airlines, Eastern Air Lines and IBM. SabreTalk is known as PL/TPF (Programming Language for TPF).[1]
In 1973, Eastern Air Lines' computing division was selling the SabreTalk compiler for US$95,000.[2]
SabreTalk programs still run in the British Airways Flight Operations system (FICO) under ALCS, using a commercially available automatic converter to translate SabreTalk programs to C programs. Both the Reservations and Operations Support System (OSS) of Delta Air Lines were developed using both SabreTalk and IBM 360 Assembler. Although development is currently restricted to C++, the majority of Delta's programming platform remained in Sabretalk until recently in the 2010s.
Because of the availability of translators[3] [4] from SabreTalk to C and discontinued support by the original developers, several companies are beginning the move away from SabreTalk to purely C-based programs.
Code Sample:
SAMPLE: PROCEDURE;
DECLARE ARRAY(10) DECIMAL(5) BASED(POINTUR);
DECLARE COUNTER BINARY(15) ALIGNED;
DECLARE TOTAL BINARY(31) ALIGNED;
START(POINTUR=#RG1); /* RECEIVE POINTER TO ARRAY IN REGISTER 1 */
TOTAL = 0;
LOOP:
DO COUNTER = 0 TO 10 BY 2;
TOTAL = TOTAL + ARRAY(COUNTER); /* TALLY EVEN NUMBERED ITEMS */
END LOOP;
IF TOTAL = 0 THEN /* VALUE OF TOTAL COMPUTED? */
ENTRC ERRO; /* N=CHECK VALIDITY IN PROG ERRO W/RETURN EXPECTED*/
BACKC(#RAC= TOTAL); /* BACK TO CALLING PROGRAM PASSING VALUE OF */
END SAMPLE; /* TOTAL IN REGISTER RAC. */
References
[edit]- ^ S. J. Hobson, "ALCS -- A High-Performance High-Availability DB/DC Monitor", p. 136 (footnote 2) in High Performance Transaction Systems, 2nd International Workshop, Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California, USA, September 28-30, 1987, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 359, Springer 1989, ISBN 3-540-51085-0.
- ^ "Sabretalk trimmed by 100K". Computerworld. 7 (18). IDG Enterprise: 17. 1973-05-02.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ S. Dhinakar Jacob, Madhuchhanda Das, "TALK2C: A Tool for Automatic Migration," icpc, pp.288, 11th IEEE International Workshop on Program Comprehension (IWPC'03), 2003
- ^ Ira Baxter, "Approaches for Code Modernization", TPF Users Group meeting 2019
External links
[edit]- Sabretalk Programmer's Reference Guide at the Wayback Machine (archived October 21, 2012)
- Robinson, Jeff (March 2001). "Moving From SabreTalk to "C" Part 1: How SabreTalk "Procedures" Become "C" Functions" (PDF). ACP/TPF Today. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 26, 2012.