Ryan-McFarland Corp claims that the latest version of RM/Cobol-85 is fully X/Open-compliant. Version 4, which includes new features such as nested programs, call by content, external phase, delete file, call program and symbolic debugging, surfaced at the Unix 89 Show in Stockholm running on the Diab Data A/S DS90 Series, one of the earliest implementations. It provides compatibility with Data General Cobol, and features data file compression, IBM mainframe Cobol extensions and improved performance. Diab Data hopes the new version will help in its task of encouraging IBM mainframe users to look at Unix-based systems, easing the task of converting Cobol-based applications for new systems.
