DIBOL

DIBOL, short for Digital's Business Oriented Language, is a type of programming language made to help create software for managing business information. It was created between 1970 and 1993 to help computers handle business tasks more easily.

This language works like other older languages such as FORTRAN and BASIC. It also uses a special kind of math called BCD arithmetic. DIBOL is unique because it organizes programs into separate parts for data and for the steps the computer needs to follow, similar to another language called COBOL.

One interesting feature of DIBOL is that it uses letters and numbers together for labels, unlike FORTRAN which only uses numbers. This made it easier to move to different parts of a program flexibly.

History

DIBOL was first created and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1970. The first version, called DIBOL-8, worked on PDP-8 computers using the COS-300 system. Later, DIBOL-11 was made for the PDP-11 with the COS-350 system and could also run on other systems.

Official rules for DIBOL were released in 1983, 1988, and 1992. Development of DIBOL mostly stopped after 1993 when DEC agreed to replace it with DBL on newer systems like OpenVMS, Digital UNIX, and SCO Unix.