MBP's Visual COBOL
Because Productivity Is The Key To Your Future
The Company
Mathematischer Beratungs und Programmierungsdienst (Mathematical Consulting and Programming Service GmbH) was founded in February of 1957 by a consortium of 14 companies. German mathematician Hans Konrad Schuff conceived the plan. The company (later renamed mbp Software & Systems GmbH) was the first software company in Europe. At the time, there were only a few computer companies in the world, including IBM, UNIVAC, and Zuse KG.
MBP created a branch in September 1981 to reach the American market. In 1992, MBP was purchased by Krupp, the largest company in Europe. Shortly, Krupp sold MBP to Electronic Data Systems, an IT company founded by Ross Perot. EDS was in turn purchased by Hewlett-Packard in 2008. As late as 2016, some MBP employees still worked at HP.
The Product
MBP developed a COBOL compiler in the 1960s. In the 1980s, they released an improved version named Visual COBOL. According to the Visual COBOL entry on EDM/2 Wiki, it was taken over by Micro Focus, but I’m not sure when.
Byte announced the release of Visual COBOL in the September 1986 issue:
Visual COBOL from mbp Software and Systems Technology is an enhanced version of its native code COBOL compiler. New features include full support of DOS path names, faster compilation speed, and a shrink utility that, according to the company, reduces the size of executable code.
This screen management system has an enhanced mask editor that creates a working-storage screen definition in the form of a COPY file. The enhanced mask editor also offers realtime numeric field validation and update capabilities with an ACCEPT statement.
Visual COBOL runs on IBM PCs, XTs, ATs, and compatibles with 192K-byte RAMs. The company recommends a hard disk. The package costs $1150.
PC Tech Journal had a similar write-up the same month:
Mbp Software and Systems Technology, Inc. has announced Visual COBOL, an enhanced version of its native code COBOL compiler. The new compiler features an improved integrated screen management system and a compilation speed that is 50 percent faster than its predecessor. Also included are a fast SORTs, a shrink utility that can reduce the size of executable code by more than 50 percent, full support of DOS path names, and revised documentation. The compiler size also has been reduced 50 percent. $1,150.
According to the October 28, 1988 issue of the unigram/x newsletter, Visual COBOL was also available for Unix:
..AND mbp FOLLOWS WITH VISUAL COBOL
mbp Software and Systems, based in Orgatechnik, Germany, but now with offices in both California and Hertforshire in the UK, has also released a version of its Visual Cobol for the Intel 80386, although its claims of being the first to offer such a product were minimised somewhat by prior notice from both Austec and Micro Focus. Visual Cobol for Unix V.3 on the 80386, includes multi-keyed ISAM and C-ISAM support, direct calling to and from C routines, multiple Sort/Merge options, extended Chaining utilities and interactive symbolic debug facilities. A screen management system, SMS, for automating screen design is also bundled in the release follows Visual Cobol versions for the IBM 6150 in August and OS/2 last month: it is also available for MS-DOS, local area networks, and Motorola 68000 and National Semiconductor hardware.
PC Tech Journal published two reviews that are too detailed to summarize here:
Did you ever use MBP's Visual COBOL? Do you know anything about its history? Tell us about it in the comments below.
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I never wrote a line of COBOL in my life but it’s nice to see an ad that shows the thick binder and stack of floppies you got when software still had a hardware part to it. It’s also interesting that they were able to (tried to?) keep and even adjust the price from 1984 to 1987 when most other software became cheaper and cheaper.