Micro Focus Plc’s version of the Cobol programming language may have got the IBM nod of approval for the RS/6000 Unix family, but undaunted, Liant Software Corp, the latest guardian of the Ryan-McFarland language compilers has announced its own Cobol and Fortran compilers and software development products for the new RISC systems. The Framingham, Massachusetts firm, formerly Language Processors Inc – is offering the RM/Cobol-85 ANSI X3.23-1985 compiler with extensions to facilitate development of both X/Open and IBM Systems Application Architecture-compliant applications. The RM/Cobol-85 Runtime System is available for use with existing applications already developed using the RM language of which Liant Software claims that there are more than 500 existing applications written by hundreds of independent developers. The company also offers LPI-Fortran, describing it as a full ANSI-Fortran-77 implementation that is X/Open compliant and conforms to US MIL-STD-1753. LPI-Fortran offers user-selectable optimisation levels and a series of VAX Fortran extensions for those that want to convert. It comes packaged with the LPI-Fortran Runtime Environment for the RS/6000. And CodeWatch is an interactive source-level debugger that operates with LPI-Fortran, which includes watchpoints, breakpoints, stepping, tracing, action lists and macros. Prices for the RM/Cobol-85 Compiler start at $1,800 while the Runtime System costs from $400. Similarly, prices for LPI-Fortran and Runtime start at $1,100 and $400 respectively; entry-level CodeWatch will set you back $800. All these products will be released with the RS/6000, which Liant says won’t now arrive until the end of June 1990.
