The way it is going, Micro Focus Plc will soon bring the entire MVS/XA environment down to the Personal Computer, and its latest step in that direction is to offer an emulator for IBM’s IMS Information Management System that runs under MS-DOS. The company says that when used with its VS Cobol Workbench, IMS Option provides programmers with a complete development system for coding, testing and running IMS applications on the micro. The IMSVS86 product was developed for Micro Focus by Stingray Software Co Inc of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and emulates both the DB database and the DC data communications components of IMS/VS. It includes support for DL/1 functions and command codes, Segment Search Arguments, and DC functions such as 3270 emulation, message switching and conversational, pseudo-conversational and queue-driven program support. Data Base Definition, Program Specification Block and Message Format Services macro generation is executed on the micro to provide instant access to system resources without the designer having to join the queue for time on the mainframe. A new DBUTIL facility enables users to query and update the database on-line without having to write a program first, to examine the datatbase to ensure that an application worked properly. Available now, IMS OPtion with VS Cobol Workbench 2.0.2 is UKP3,000. An AT-alike with 1.5Mb of Micro Focus XM extended memory is advised.
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