z/OS and OS/VS Cobol

Okay I've searched the IBM website and am inundated with over
150,000 hits so I'm just going ask.

I'm consulting at a shop that is OS/390 upgrading soon to
z/OS, version 4 I think. We have an extensive number of
OS/VS Cobol programs: batch, CICS, IMS-DB.

I understand existing load modules will run. What I am
unclear about is can the OS/VS compiler be used? Seems
I have read that under z/OS if the program must be
re-compiled it must be upgraded to a more current compiler;
that the OS/VS compiler can't be used. Is this true or not?
For batch? CICS?

Please don't give me the lecture about OS/VS Cobol. I already
know and I'd upgrade everything if it were my choice but I'm
just a consultant and I don't have the decision making power.

Thank You.

Mike wrote:
> Okay I've searched the IBM website and am inundated with over
> 150,000 hits so I'm just going ask.
>
> I'm consulting at a shop that is OS/390 upgrading soon to
> z/OS, version 4 I think. We have an extensive number of
> OS/VS Cobol programs: batch, CICS, IMS-DB.
>
> I understand existing load modules will run. What I am
> unclear about is can the OS/VS compiler be used? Seems
> I have read that under z/OS if the program must be
> re-compiled it must be upgraded to a more current compiler;
> that the OS/VS compiler can't be used. Is this true or not?
> For batch? CICS?
>
> Please don't give me the lecture about OS/VS Cobol. I already
> know and I'd upgrade everything if it were my choice but I'm
> just a consultant and I don't have the decision making power.
>
> Thank You.

I work in a shop that has z/OS 1.4.  We're in the process of upgrading
to z/OS 1.5.  Within the last two ws I compiled a small batch
program with the OS/VS COBOL compiler, just to see if it still worked.
It does, and it printed the current date with a year of 1904!

I didn't try CICS, and we have DB2 instead of IMS.  Our sysprogs have
been telling us that with the next release of CICS/Transaction Server
(we're currently on CICS/TS 2.2) that old OS/VS COBOL and VS COBOL II
programs will not run.  IBM won't support CICS pre-processing for
older COBOL either.

Good Luck!

--
http://arnold.trembley.home.att.net/