DEC-10-KC1B-D COBOL Programmers Manual Jul70

This document is the "PDP-10 COBOL Programmer's Reference Manual" (DEC-10-KC1B-D), published by Digital Equipment Corporation in July 1970 (2nd Printing). It serves as a comprehensive reference for programmers writing COBOL programs for the PDP-10 computer system.

Key aspects of the manual include:

1. COBOL Language Fundamentals: It introduces COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) as an easy-to-use, business-oriented, machine-independent programming language using English-like statements. It details the character set, word formation (reserved and user-created), punctuation, literals (numeric and nonnumeric), and figurative constants.
2. Program Structure and Divisions: The manual outlines the four mandatory divisions of a COBOL program:
   • Identification Division: For program identification and documentation.
   • Environment Division: Describes the computer configurations for compilation and execution, including hardware features and special names (like CONSOLE, CHANNEL, SWITCH).
   • Data Division: Describes the data to be processed, covering file sections (physical file characteristics, records) and working-storage sections (intermediate data and constants), data descriptions (elementary/group items, level numbers, qualification, subscripting, indexing), and various clauses (e.g., PICTURE, USAGE, VALUE, REDEFINES, OCCURS).
   • Procedure Division: Describes the actions to be performed, covering syntactic format, statements (imperative, conditional, compiler-directing), paragraphs, sections, segmentation, arithmetic expressions (operators, evaluation rules), conditional expressions (relation, class, condition-name, switch-status, sign conditions, logical operators), and detailed formats for verbs like ACCEPT, ADD, ALTER, CLOSE, COMPUTE, DISPLAY, DIVIDE, ENTER, EXAMINE, EXIT, GO TO, IF, MOVE, MULTIPLY, NOTE, OPEN, PERFORM, READ, RELEASE, RETURN, SEEK, SET, SORT, STOP, and SUBTRACT.
3. Standard I-O Processing: It explains how data is structured, stored, accessed, and moved during run-time, including access modes (sequential, random), recording modes (DISPLAY-6, DISPLAY-7), file and channel tables, blocking, and label records (standard and non-standard).
4. COBOL Library and Maintenance: A chapter is dedicated to the COBOL Library, which allows inclusion of source-language text via the COPY statement, and the Source Library Maintenance Program, explaining its equipment requirements, features, input/output formats, operational procedures, command language (INSERT, DELETE, REPLACE, CORRECT, END, RESTART), and error recovery mechanisms.
5. Appendices: Include a list of COBOL reserved words, the ASCII character collating sequence, details on the ENTER procedure for external subroutines, and command strings for the compiler.

The document emphasizes that it is a reference manual for programmers and not a tutorial. It also specifies the PDP-10 hardware requirements for running both the COBOL compiler (48K core, teleprinter, 100,000 words disk) and the compiled object programs. It includes an acknowledgment about COBOL being an industry language with no warranty provided by its contributors or the COBOL Committee.