Runtime Fees: The Hidden Tax in Your Tech Stack

Runtime Fees: The Hidden Tax in Your Tech Stack

In COBOL environments, runtime-based licensing imposes recurring costs each time an application is executed—costs that persist well beyond the initial compiler purchase. While initially tolerable in controlled, limited use environments, runtime-based licensing fees...

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The Many Charms of COBOL

The Many Charms of COBOL

 During my studies in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), also known as East Germany, I immersed myself in the world of programming languages. My first companions on this journey were PL/1 and the ubiquitous assembler ASM370. Why these two? Well, the...

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Thoughts from a Mainframe on Halloween

Thoughts from a Mainframe on Halloween

It was a dark and stormy night in the data center. 🌩️ The fans hummed softly, and the LEDs blinked like little ghosts in the darkness. I had experienced many Halloween nights as a mainframe, but this one was different. There was an eerie presence in the air — and it...

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z/VSE: The forgotten operating system

z/VSE: The forgotten operating system

In the world of mainframe operating systems, z/VSE is often overshadowed by better-known siblings such as z/OS. But z/VSE has an impressive story worth telling. Virtual Storage Extended (z/VSE) is an operating system designed specifically for IBM mainframes. It was...

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