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Topic quick links:
General Courses
TSO/ISPF
JCL & Utilities
Assembler Language
COBOL
VSAM
Language Environment
UNIX System Services
NEW: I've had a number of requests for more detail about my courses, so I've increased the samples from just-the-outline to include from the cover foil through the first section (which most often ends with a lab / machine exercise). I didn't do this for all courses, just most. For those courses with this option, you can see up to 58 pages from the course materials, in order to get a clearer picture of content and style.
Below are all the courses we have available, and are developing materials for, your z/OS application programmer training
(And here is a link to my site of online courses for creating web pages using Notepad in Windows: Still Plugging Away)
| Course title | Description / Prerequisite |
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| General / Introduction Courses | |
| A010: Introduction to Application Programming (z/OS) |
Intended audience: People with aptitude but no background in computers;
these could be new hires or employees looking to move into your data processing staff Click to see the first section. 3 discussion / paper labs2 days; 180 pages, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: Just an apptitude for programming Status: Updated and available |
| A500: Introduction to z/OS |
Intended audience: Developers new to IBM mainframes (or familiar with IBM
mainframes but not familiar with z/OS). These could be people with technical
backgrounds in other computing platforms Click to see the first section. 1 day; 198 pages, index; last updated: 2024Prerequsite: familiarity with any non-z/OS system Status: Updated and available |
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| TSO, CLIST, REXX, ISPF / Dialog Manager | |
| A633: TSO/ISPF in z/OS |
Intended audience: Programmers learning how to get work done in z/OS; new system
support staff might also benefit. The narrative: For most z/OS shops, ISPF is the primary tool for coding, compiling / assembling, binding / linking, and testing. This course provides a thorough introduction for the novice in how to navigate around and use this tool effectively. From logging on and understanding panel layouts and action bars, setting function key values, to techniques for creating, editing, deleting, renaming data sets, running batch jobs and viewing output, the student gains a huge amount of skills in a very short time. Click to see the first section. 17 machine exercises3 days; 440 pages, 2-page summary sheet, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: None, although it helps to have some background such as found in "Introduction to Application Programming (z/OS)" Status: Updated and available |
| A636: ISPF Update and Refresh |
Intended audience: Programmers / developers who use ISPF and could benefit from
its richer capabilities The narrative: The experienced ISPF user has deeper needs, centered around application development (searching for strings in large lists of datasets, comparing different levels of code or data). And with the growing use of exchanging files between z/OS and other platforms, it's helpful to learn ISPF techniques for handling ASCII and Unicode data. Finally we cover how to create basic edit macros so the student can begin to build edit tools helpful for them and their team. Click to see the first section. 10 hands on machine exercises2 days; 198 pages, index; Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
| A650: TSO CLIST Programming in z/OS |
Intended audience: Programmers who need to maintain or create CLIST scripts The narrative: The TSO environment, and basic commands, CLIST (command list) fundamentals: command procedure statement, symbolic variables, EXEC TSO command, symbolic susbstitution, control variables, built-in functions, conditional logic, SELECT statement, running CLISTs from DSLIST, attention routines, working with files, printing and copying, PDSE and VSAM support, LISTDSI, error handling, PROC statement and parameters, global variables, trapping command output, running programs in foreground (TSO 'CALL'), submitting jobs to the background (batch), the TSO EDIT command, TRANSMIT and RECEIVE Click to see the first section. 13 standard and two optional hands-on machine exercises.3 days; 322 pages, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
| A750: TSO REXX Programming in z/OS |
Intended audience: Programmers who need to maintain or create REXX scripts The narrative: The TSO environment, and basic commands, REXX fundamentals: tokens, strings, operators; TSO EXEC command, REXX operators, built-in functions, numerics, the stack, parsing, logic structures, running EXECs from DSLIST, interrupting an EXEC, debugging, working with files, printing and copying, PDSE and VSAM support, LISTDSI, record I/O, buffers and stacks, compound symbols, subroutines, user-written functions, string manipulation, trapping output from a command, running programs in foreground (TSO 'CALL'), running programs and EXECs in the background (batch), REXX and Dialog Manager, TRANSMIT and RECEIVE, optional: the REXX compiler Click to see the first section. 14 hands on machine exercises.5 days; 514 pages, summary of REXX commands and TSO commands covered, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
| A780: Introduction to TSO and REXX APIs |
Intended audience: Programmers who need to create or maintain REXX scripts
that interface with compiled programs. The narrative: Basic program interfaces, accessing external files, interacting with the operator at the console, running jobs in batch, running programs in the foreground, allocating data sets, TSO CALL, terminal I/O, TSO WHEN, freeing datasets, TSO service facility, addressing modes, residency modes, invoking IKJEFTSR from Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, and C, TSO REXX interfaces, REXX CALL vs TSO CALL, calling IKJCT441 from Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, and C, accessing DB2 databases, DSN RUN, DSNREXX, Dialog Manager, REXX dynamic program linkages, running EXECs in batch, accessing REXX variables from compiled programs, calling IRXEXCOM from Assembler, COBOL, PL/I and C Click to see the first section. 9 hands on machine exercises.2 days; 196 pages, summary of REXX commands and TSO commands covered, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: "TSO REXX Programming in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| A810: Developing Dialog Manager Applications in z/OS |
Intended audience: Programmers who need to create or maintain ISPF dialogs
that interface with compiled programs. The narrative: This fun class assumes prior knowledge of REXX or CLIST and then moves on to provide a thorough introduction to developing, coding, testing, and maintaining applications to be run under the ISPF environment. Panel definition language, ISPF variables and variable services, ISPF service functions (LIBDEF, DISPLAY, LMxxxx, etc.), ISPF messages and message services, pop up windows, scrollable fields, menus, debugging, Edit, View, and Browse, ISPF tables, File tailoring, introduction to Dialog Tag Language, ISPPDTLC service. 14 standard and one optional machine exercises Click to see the first section. 5 days; 682 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2012Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and either "TSO REXX programming in z/OS" or "TSO CLIST Programming in z/OS" or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
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| JCL and Utilities | |
| B610: z/OS JCL and Utilities |
Intended audience: Programmers / developers who need to submit jobs to the batch The narrative: Operating System concepts, the road to z/OS, job management and workflow, how JCL describes resources, JCL syntax, submitting a job, examining job output, basic utilities, introduction to SORT, memory management, condition codes, JCL procedures, nested procedures, information sources Click to see the first section. 13 hands on machine exercises.3 days; 338 pages, JCL summary sheet, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
| A700: ISPF and JCL on z/OS |
Intended audience: Programmers learning how to get work done in z/OS; new system
support staff might also benefit. The narrative: This is a mashup of "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and "z/OS JCL and Utilities", enabling an ISPF / JCL package to fit into a five day work week. This is done by eliminating redundant passages and dropping a few topics. The omitted topics are: reference lists; the Workplace shell; ISPF VSAM support; DELETE and LISTC TSO commands Click to see the first section. 27 hands on machine exercises5 days; 672 pages, ISPF summary sheet, JCL summary sheet, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: None, although it helps to have some background such as found in "Introduction to Application Programming (z/OS)" Status: Updated and available |
| B625: Using DFSORT and ICETOOL |
Intended audience: Programmers / support staff who need to use IBM's
DFSORT product The narrative: Basic DFSORT; using SORT to do a copy; symbolic names and literals; converting values; working with date and time formats; DFSORT and HTML; z/OS UNIX files; ASCII files; VSAM support; ICEGENER; sort control statements (INCLUDE, OMIT, INREC, SORT, OUTREC), operands (PARSE, BUILD, OVERLAY, FINDREP, OUTFIL, ALTSEQ, RECORD, MERGE, OPTION, JOINKEYS), ICETOOL (COPY, COUNT, DEFAULTS, MERGE, MODE, RANGE, SORT, STATS, UNIQUE, VERIFY, DISPLAY, OCCUR, RESIZE, DATASORT, SUBSET, SELECT, SPLICE) 20 hands on machine exercises Click to see the first section. 4 days; 562 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2024Prerequisite: "z/OS JCL and Utilities", or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
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| Assembler Language | |
| C410: z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 1: Beginnings |
Intended audience: Programmers beginning their journey into Assembler language The narrative: Programming concepts for mainframe, instruction formats, basic program structure, describing data, defining constants and storage areas, file accessing techniques, compares, branches, linkages, record processing, packed decimal, redefining storage, data structures, introduction to debugging, editing packed decimal data, immediate instructions, binary integer data, logical arithmetic, literals, loop control, table processing, multiple base registers, DSECTs, bit manipulation, shift instructions, string manipulation Click to see the first section. 14 hands on machine exercises.5 days; 402 pages, instruction summary, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and "z/OS JCL and Utilities", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
| C414: z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 2: Interfaces |
Intended audience: Programmers continuing their journey into Assembler language The narrative: Standard program linkage conventions, file handling, subroutines and the program binder, CALL, program maintenance, debugging, useful system services, variable length records, QSAM locate mode, dynamic program linkages, dynamic storage management, reentrant programs, AMODE 31 issues Click to see the first section. 9 hands-on machine exercises3 days; 296 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 1". Status: Updated and available |
| C510: z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 3: z/Architecture Update |
Intended audience: Programmers needing to understand and use the new
hardware and software services to support 64-bit addressing The narrative: The focus is on the changes introduced with z/Architecture machines and later z/OS Assembler language features, macro changes; 64-bit arithmetic; AMODE 64 considerations; workng with ASCII and Unicode data; additional hardware instructions (over 500 instructions are covered); structure of the 64-bit address space; linkage conventions and save areas Click to see the first section. 13 hands on machine exercises.4 days; 560 pages including 45 page index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 2" or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
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| COBOL | |
| D715: Structured COBOL Workshop for Enterprise COBOL |
Intended audience: Programmers beginning their journey into COBOL The narrative: Foundation: hardware, software, instructions, programs, compiling and binding, COBOL Basics: character set, words, punctuation; program structure; figurative constants, editing data (edit pictures), describing data, processing data (files), move mode vs locate mode, perform, general program structure and design: pseudocode; conditional statements, numeric data (packed decimal and binary), arithmetic instructions, the evaluate statement, string manipulation, intrinsic functions, working with print files, control breaks, match-merge, miscellaneous Click to see the first section. 17 hands-on machine exercises5 days; 524 pages, appendix, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
| D725: Advanced Topics in COBOL |
Intended audience: Beginning COBOL programmers who need to expand their skills in this language. The narrative: Subroutines, static vs. dynamic linkages; special registers, null terminated strings, local-storage, recursive programs, pointers (procedure-pointers, function-pointers, Addres Of special register, dynamic file allocation, tables (with subscripts and indexes), variable length records, string handling, and, optionally, the COBOL SORT and MERGE verbs. Click to see the first section. 12 hands-on machine exercises3 days; 316 pages, appendix, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "Structured COBOL Workshop for Enterprise COBOL", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available |
| D732: Enterprise COBOL Debugging and Maintenance |
Intended audience: COBOL programmers who need to solve program errors The narrative: Language Environment (LE): LE completion codes, LE messages, LE condition handling, LE run-time parameters, LE debugging services - CEE3DMP, CEE3ABD, CEETEST; debugging strategy; system completion codes; anatomy of a COBOL compile listing; the school of footprints and breadcrumbs; MVS/QuickRef; dump reading: SYSUDUMP and CEEDUMP; relevant compiler options; subroutine linkage options; the program binder; COBOL declaratives (I/O and DEBUGGING); Click to see the first section. 3 hands-on machine exercises2 days; 314 pages, appendices, index; 2 days; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "Advanced Topics in COBOL (Enterprise COBOL, z/OS)", or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| D734: Enterprise COBOL Update |
Intended audience: Experienced COBOL programmers who have not had a chance to get
caught up with the latest IBM COBOL compilers The narrative: Mixed case code; un-named filler; packed-decimal and binary data types; table extensions; pointers and addresses; nested programs; CALL enhancements; scope terminators; in-line PERFORM; SET ... TO TRUE; CONTINUE; INITIALIZE; EVALUATE; new compiler options; intrinsic functions (); Language Environment (LE); apostrophes and quotes, null-terminated non-numeric literals; local-storage; recursive programs; passing arguments BY VALUE; introduction of object-oriented COBOL; DLL support; comp-5 usage; 31 digit numbers; line sequential files; dynamic file allocation; z/OS UNIX support; multithreading support; underscore in user-defined names; XML PARSE. 6 hands on machine exercises Click to see detailed outline. 2 days; 404 pages, index; last updated: 2012Prerequisite: Experience writing COBOL programs. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| D735: Enterprise COBOL Unicode and XML Support |
Intended audience: Experienced COBOL programmers who have a need
to process XML data from a COBOL program. The narrative: features included in COBOL for working with Unicode data; XML PARSE and XML GENERATE (using both XMLPARSE(COMPAT) and XMLPARSE(XMLSS) options) Click to see the first section. 10 hands on machine exercises2 days; 228 pages, appendix, index; 2 days; last updated: 2013 Prerequisite: "Enterprise COBOL Update", or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
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| VSAM | |
| G510: VSAM With Access Method Services |
Intended audience: Application programmers, in any language, who need to
understand the structures of VSAM files and how to use the IDCAMS utility. The narrative: VSAM organizations (ESDS, KSDS, RRDS, LSDS, AIX); estimating space requirements for VSAM data sets; IDCAMS JCL requirements and commands (DEFINE CLUSTER, REPRO, PRINT, DELETE, EXPORT, IMPORT, VERIFY, ALTER, EXAMINE); reusable data sets; performance tuning hints; extended format KSDS; record level sharing; recoverable spheres Click to see detailed outline. 5 hands on machine exercises2 days; 196 pages, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| D540: VSAM for COBOL Programmers |
Intended audience: COBOL application programmers who need to
understand VSAM files and how to process them using COBOL. The narrative: VSAM organizations (ESDS, KSDS, RRDS, LSDS, AIX); IDCAMS JCL requirements and commands (DEFINE CLUSTER, REPRO, PRINT, DELETE); defining VSAM data sets in a COBOL program; OPEN and CLOSE; file position indicator; file status data items; loading or extending data into an ESDS VSAM data set; retrieving ESDS records sequentially; update in place (REWRITE); loading or extending KSDS data sets; processing a KSDS sequentially; the START verb; random file processing; dynamic processing; DELETE a record; alternate indexes; loading or extending RRDS data sets; sequential and random processing of RRDS; Click to see detailed outline. 5 standard and one optional hands on machine exercises2 days; 260 pages, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: Experience writing COBOL programs. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| E540: VSAM for PL/I Programmers |
Intended audience: PL/I application programmers who need to
understand VSAM files and how to process them using PL/I. The narrative: VSAM organizations (ESDS, KSDS, RRDS, LSDS, AIX); IDCAMS JCL requirements and commands (DEFINE CLUSTER, REPRO, PRINT, DELETE); defining VSAM data sets in a PL/I program (DECLARE); OPEN and CLOSE; file position indicator; file status data items; loading or extending data into an ESDS VSAM data set; retrieving ESDS records sequentially; update in place (REWRITE); loading or extending KSDS data sets; processing a KSDS sequentially; LOCATE mode processing; random file processing; dynamic processing; DELETE a record; alternate indexes; loading or extending RRDS data sets; sequential and random processing of RRDS; Click to see detailed outline. 4 standard and one optional hands on machine exercises2 days; 260 pages, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: Experience writing PL/I programs. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
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| Language Environment, InterLanguage Communication, DLLs | |
| M512: Using LE Services in z/OS |
Intended audience: Experienced programmers (Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C) who need to use
Language Environment (LE) callable services The narrative: LE concepts and terms; tokens, return codes; messaging services and inserts; debugging services, storage management services; condition handling; interlanguage communication; Assembler considerations; date and time services; international support; nested enclaves; C/C++ and XPLINK; building loadable text file messages using CEEBLDTX REXX exec; symbolic feedback codes; callable services Assembler macros available; LE run-time parameters Click to see the first section. 8 hands on machine exercises3 days; 620 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and experience with one of these programming languages: Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| M520: Cross Program Communication in z/OS |
Intended audience: Experienced programmers (Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C) who need to write
programs that invoke, or are invoked by, programs written in different programming languages The narrative: static and dynamic calls to programs in the same or different programming languages (we cover Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, and C); how to define variables, structures, and tables; how to pass items (by reference, by content, by value); passing and receiving a variable number of parameters; the structure of object code; the workings of the program binder; creating and using multiple entry points; ways to share data; Click to see the first section. 9 hands on machine exercises3 days; 490 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2013 Prerequisite: "Using LE Services in z/OS" and experience with one of these programming languages: Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| M525: Creating and Using DLLs in z/OS |
Intended audience: Programmers who need to use the facilities of DLLs The narrative: concepts and vocabulary of DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries); exporting entry points and external data; function descriptors and variable descriptors; auto-load; trigger-load-on-reference; trigger-load-on-call; binder requirements; writing DLLs in Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C; invoking DLLs from programs written in Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C; PL/I packages; alternate entry points; alternatives to DLLs; DLL services (dlopen, dlsym, dlclose, dlerror) Click to see the first section. 2 hands on machine exercises1 day; 150 pages, index; last updated: 2013 Prerequisite: "Cross Program Communication in z/OS" and experience with one of these programming languages: Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
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| z/OS UNIX System Services and the World Wide Web | |
| U510: Introduction to z/OS UNIX |
Intended audience: z/OS programmers who need to learn how to use z/OS UNIX System Services The narrative: Introduction to z/OS UNIX; the UNIX shell; the shell interface under OMVS; effective UID, group ID; shell command syntax; markup languages; an introduction to HTML; web servers on z/OS; submitting jobs from the shell; DSLIST (ISPF 3.17); shell commands (id, logname, cal, date, echo, man, who, whoami, fc, history, r, alias, hash, unalias, export, env, readonly, printenv, pwd, cd, basename, dirname, umask, mkdir, rmdir, ls, mkcatdefsm gencat, runcat, dspcat, dspmsg, localedef, locale, iconv, tr, cp, copytree, mv, tso, compress, uncompress, zcat, pax, tar, submit, telnet, rlogin, stty, tabs, unexpand, expand); TSO commands (MKDIR, OPUT, OPUTX, OGET, OGETX, OEDIT, OBROWSE, ISHELL) 18 hands on machine exercises Click to see the first section. 3 days; 512 pages, appendices including command summary, index; last updated: 2013Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| U515: Shell Script Programming in z/OS UNIX |
Intended audience: z/OS programmers who need to learn how to create and use shell scripts under
z/OS UNIX. The narrative: regular expressions; the 'ed', 'oedit', and 'sed' editors; work with directories, files, and shell variables; communicating with the user at the terminal; the BPXBATCH facility; information about 'vi', 'ex', 'emacs', 'gmacs'; OSHELL command; the magic number; shell commands (tty, sleep, ps, uname, grep, egrep, fgrep, ed, find, read, clear, getconf, if, test, pathchk, until, while, break, continue, let, typeset, integer, expr, for, select, case, getopts, print, autoload, set, unset, sh, exec, whence, type, eval, xargs, file, shift, sed, tsort, sort, [[ ]], diff, patch, dircmp, cmp, cksum, comm, uniq, wc, od, split, csplit) Click to see the first section. 19 hands on machine exercises3 days; 580 pages, appendices including command summary, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: "Introduction to z/OS UNIX" or equivalent experience. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| U520: Developing Applications for z/OS UNIX |
Intended audience: z/OS programmers who need to create application programs to run under
z/OS UNIX. The narrative: Coding UNIX apps in C or COBOL or PL/I or Assembler; creating programs that can: interact with the user at a terminal, handle files (classic MVS files or z/OS files), and dynamically call subroutines; such programs can be run from the shell or, in some cases, in batch; Assembling / compiling, and binding using z/OS UNIX commands instead of JCL; BPX1LOD; makefiles; shell commands (printf, scanf, fopen, fread, fwrite, fclose, ar, c89, as, cob2, pli, ld, make) Click to see the first section. 16 hands on machine exercises3 days; 492 pages, appendices including command summary, index; last updated: 2012 Prerequisite: "Introduction to z/OS UNIX" or equivalent experience, plus experience with one of these programming languages: Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| UC01: Introduction to CGIs in z/OS |
Intended audience: z/OS programmers who need to create CGI programs to support a website
hosted on z/OS UNIX. The narrative: Define what a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) program is; initial context; basic web concepts review; HTML subset; events and event handlers; introduction to JavaScript; forms and INPUT controls; submit processing; GET processing; PUT processing; emitting Unicode data to the user; error handling, testing, debugging; DB2 access; RRSAF; submitting batch jobs; nph ("no process headers") processing; cookies; the design of web based dialogs; Click to see detailed outline. there are no labs but there are short sample CGI programs in C, COBOL, Assembler, PL/I, REXX, and shell script;This course is expected to be followed by one of our language-specific CGI courses. 1 day 208 pages; appendix, index; last updated: 2013) Prerequisite: "You and z/OS and the World Wide Web" or equivalent experience. Special note: The prerequisite course has been removed, so to attend this course, the student is expected to already have some familiarity with the web on z/OS; or, for a separate price I can re-create the prerequisite course; or have the student enroll in the web coding course(s) at https://www.stillpluggingaway.com/ Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| UC04: Writing z/OS CGIs in COBOL |
Intended audience: z/OS COBOL programmers who need to create CGI programs to support a website
hosted on z/OS UNIX. The narrative: Coding, compiling, debugging, deploying, and maintaining CGIs written for the z/OS environment in COBOL; handling GET and POST requests; respond with dynamically created HTML pages; access environment variables; access DB2 data (optional); access VSAM KSDS data by primary key or alternate index; UNICODE output; submitting jobs to the batch. Click to see the first section. 9 standard and 1 optional hands on machine exercises2 days; 262 pages, appendix, index; last updated: 2013) Prerequisite: "Introduction to CGIs in z/OS" or equivalent experience plus experience writing COBOL programs. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
| UC06: Writing z/OS CGIs in Assembler |
Intended audience: z/OS Assembler programmers who need to create CGI programs to support a website
hosted on z/OS UNIX. The narrative: Coding, compiling, debugging, deploying, and maintaining CGIs written for the z/OS environment in Assembler; handling GET and POST requests; respond with dynamically created HTML pages; access environment variables; access DB2 data (optional); access VSAM KSDS data by primary key or alternate index; UNICODE output; submitting jobs to the batch. Click to see the first section. 9 standard and 1 optional hands on machine exercises2 days; 264 pages, appendix, index; last updated: 2013) Prerequisite: "Introduction to CGIs in z/OS" or equivalent experience plus experience writing Assembler programs. Status: Accept as is, or request update be developed |
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| Technical Papers | |
| General z/OS thoughts | |
| The Future of Mainframes is Now |
A brief summary of the evolution of Z/OS and z/Architecture,
Language Environment as a common runtime for multiple languages
and applications, and the availability of z/OS UNIX. 27 pages; USD 5.00 |
| z/OS, Language Environment, and UNIX: How They Work Together |
A description of how all these components complement each other. Complements /
expands a great deal on the "Future of Mainframes" paper above. Very rich. 157 pages; USD 10.00 |
| Creating Modern Business Computer Applications on z/OS |
A survey of the skills an IT group will likely need as they move into the z/OS
world running z/OS UNIX and maybe hosting a website on their mainframe 24 pages; USD 5.00 |
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| z/OS Assembler Language | |
| Doing Packed Decimal Arithmetic in Assembler |
A step by step description of using the packed decimal instruction set 100 pages; USD 12.00 |
| Writing Reentrant Programs |
Definition of reentrant programs, techniques to use for creating reentrant programs, a
sample program 26 pages; USD 6.50 |
| Applications Assembler Programming for z: a discourse |
Discussion of changes brought about by system z hardware and z/OS for existing Assembler
programs. A look at 64-bit registers, baseless programming, relative branching, the long
displacement facility, the extended immediate facility 47 pages; USD 12.00 |
| I/O and AMODE 31 |
Discussion of concerns to focus on when moving existing Assembler programs to work above the
line 7 pages; USD 3.00 |
| z/OS Control Blocks for Beginners |
Exploration of how z/OS uses control blocks to manage work. Addresses, pointers, chains,
anchors, ASID, ASCB, RCT, TCB, PRB, SVRB, initiators, STC, dump task, XTLST, CDE, data areas,
CVT, PSA, DDLIST command, SYSUDUMP. Note that the links on page 48 are no longer working; instead use http://gsf-soft.com/zOS-links.html for the first and http://www.longpelaexpertise.com.au/ for the second. 52 pages; USD 10.00 |
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| COBOL | |
| Enterprise COBOL - A Tool for Growth |
Covers changes from older COBOL language spec to later, to provide insights
into the conversion process 77 pages; USD 12.00 |
| Enterprise COBOL Version 5.1 Differences |
Upgrading from COBOL 4 to COBOL 5 presents some challenges as well as some
opportunites 7 pages; USD 4.00 |
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| The Web on z/OS | |
| Porting Apache 2.2.9 to z/OS 1.9 |
Step by step walk through. Even though both Apache and z/OS have later releases,
the steps are similar to install later versions of Apach on later releases of z/OS 34 pages; USD 6.00 |
| Setting up the IBM HTTP Server: A near-cookbook to get you going |
Similar to the Apache install above; you might want to read both papers and decide
which server would work best for you 40 pages; USD 6.00 |
| Hosting a web site on z/OS |
Describes lessons learned while getting a web site up and running under z/OS 17 pages; USD 4.00 |
| An Introduction to Unicode |
Introduces the basics of Unicode and then focuses on how z/Architecutre and z/OS
support Unicode 52 pages; USD 5.00 |
| The Arc of DB2 (Using DB2 to work the World Wide Web) |
How current DB2 supports web features: BLOBs, CLOBs, and DBCLOBs; COBOL access to LOBs;
DB2 support of Unicode; XML 100 pages; USD 15.00 |
| Using DB2 LOBs |
While this paper overlaps the above paper a bit, it's main strength is it
includes complete example of accessing a DB2 LOB using COBOL: an html form, a css
style sheet, and a COBOL CGI program 50 pages; USD 8.00 |
| Coding AJAX Applications (Using HTML, JavaScript and COBOL on z/OS) |
Here we describe the reason for using AJAX applications, and how to code them; describes
six experiments including html pages, some COBOL, even a little php 80 pages; USD 15.00 |
On a different tack, here is my site of online courses for creating web pages using Notepad
in Windows:
Still Plugging Away
Note that if you have the IBM or Apache servers installed on your mainframe, you can use ISPF
to code web pages following those courses.
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