Y2K Startup 1996-2000

A brief history of Deskware, Inc. By Matt Dean co-founder

What did we do? – We wrote a Microsoft Windows based piece of software to reverse-engineer COBOL, Mainframe Assembler, PL-1, and RPG source code.

VACE allowed programmers to open up legacy source code files, quickly edit the code, and dynamically see the structure of the program.

VACE was actively marketed from 10/01/1997

– 12/16/2006

Respective Customers:

City of Knoxville Bechtel Corp. Washington MillsThurau & Co. GMBH

State Library of Queensland Simon & Wiesel

Purdue University Old Dominion Data Systems

Waukesha State Bank

Westpeak Investment Cisco Systems GMAC

American Electric Power

Lakeshore Group, Ltd

Fort Wayne Newspapers

Dell Gulf South Medical Supply

Harvard Medical School

Northern Trust Bank Intel Caribbean

TransportationPerez Abreu Company US Postal Service Pacific Service

Credit UnionSun Yet-Sen Cancer Center

Amway Corporation Asplundh

IBM Cooper Tire Sweetheart Cup Company

Adventist Health Care Systems NCR Taiwan, R.O.C.

Not exactly a dot-com startup…

“The garage is the space for the hacker, the tinkerer, the

maker. The garage is not defined by a single field or

industry; instead, it is defined by the eclectic

interests of its inhabitants. It is a space where

intellectual networks converge.”

― Steven Johnson, How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

After the Y2K crisis…After Y2K we realized we had developed some very good source code parsers for the

COBOL programming language, and created the

first COBOL based interpreter.

 IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Computer programs for use in developing and executing other

computer programs on computers, computer networks, and local communications networks, and

instruction manual sold therewith. FIRST USE: 19991005. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19991005

What is cobolscript?

• CobolScript is a COBOL based scripting language. Anyone who already knows COBOL can easily use CobolScript to build server-side scripts with virtually no learning curve. CobolScript has familiar COBOL syntax and is ideal for data conversion, batch interfaces, and server-side scripting. CobolScript is cross-platform compatible, with versions for the following operating systems: MS Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CobolScript

Cobolscript – going forward

•The cobolscript interpreter is currently being maintained by Matt Dean. He is currently uplifting the cobolscript language from version 3.1 to version 4.0. Feel free to reach out to him for more information.

THANK YOU

Feel free to reach out to me regarding this content or questions you might have.

Best Regards,

Matt Deandeskware@outlook.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mjdean1/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CobolScript

Copyright © 2017 Matt Dean. All rights reserved.