So here is the problem:
Recently someone bought a new PC for server to replace an older dating from before 1985 (i wonder how it is possible to work daily from then) .
He wants to put there the old COBOL software and he isnt willing in any means to rewrite it to something better..
So is there any compiler for 1985 cobol? For nowadays red hat linux? Googling it found opencobol and other few but all converted the code to c… Seems too compilacted too me..
UPDATE AS REQUESTED
AIX was the old system
What’s the problem with converting the COBOL to C and then compiling? As long as it works. Early C++ environments were implemented in the same way: they converted the C++ to C, and then invoked the C compiler.
Converting the COBOL to C allows them to use high-level abstractions that implement the COBOL equivalents in C. They can leverage the standard C libraries, and also convert the COBOL data access code into calls to widely available databases like MySQL. Finally, converting to C and then compiling leverages the vast amount of development effort that went into code generation. Were they to try compiling directly to object code, they’d have to generate the intermediate code expected by the GNU compiler subsystem, or they’d have to go directly to object code. Either one of those would be much more complicated than converting to C, meaning that the likelihood of bugs in the COBOL compiler would be much higher.
From where I sit, I’d say OpenCOBOL is worth looking into. Note that they say they implement “a substantial part of the COBOL 85 and COBOL 2002 standards.” You probably want to make sure that they implement the parts that you need.
I would also suggest that you look into TinyCOBOL.