Well, if IBM released the source then I would expect GNU Prolog to be a big help. That leaves he question of how close the wonky C is to, e.g., GNU CC, and what other tools would be needed. If you ported it to, e.g., QT <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software)> it would be easy to have it run under both Linux and W11.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <[email protected]> on behalf of Steve Thompson <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2026 5:52 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Whither ASMPUT? External Message: Use Caution There is a GNU Prolog, SWI-Prolog and a few others. Don't know if any of those would be of use. Steve.T On 3/18/2026 5:15 PM, Seymour J Metz wrote: > As I recall, Prolog is a rule matching language, and I'm not aware of any > contemporary compiler in that niche. > > > -- > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 > עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי > נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר > > > > > ________________________________________ > From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <[email protected]> on > behalf of Jonathan Scott <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2026 4:20 PM > To: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Whither ASMPUT? > > > External Message: Use Caution > > > From what I remember, I don't think anyone would get anything useful from > the ASMPUT source code, even for free. Think of it as being in some old > trunk in the attic which contains broken bits of many different things that > should probably have been thrown away. > > In 2013 when we first looked at it, it hadn't been touched for about a > decade, and it probably hadn't been actively developed for much longer except > to add some new instructions. We couldn't make head or tail of it, and it > appeared that any design documentation had presumably been lost long ago (an > infuriatingly common problem), possibly before the migration from OS/2 to > Windows. Much of the Windows "source code" was the output of a > semi-automated porting process (presumably from Prolog), so in many ways it > was more like generated code than source code and not very readable. We > didn't even manage to work out which of the many files in the relevant > repository were actually used in building the current version of ASMPUT, as > it included code generation tools which we couldn't run. And it was of > course the only HLASM or Toolkit program which did not run on the mainframe > and was not coded in Assembler or PL/X, so it was not within our normal skill > set. The HLASM team borrowed a Windows programmer for a few weeks to see if > he could find a way to migrate it to a current Windows C++ compiler or > perhaps to Java, but he didn't get very far. > > Of course, that's just my own impression (as I remember it anyway), but my > feeling is that it's probably not even practical to do the work to make some > form of the source available, and even if it is, the amount of work that > would be needed to recreate the current level of ASMPUT from it would be > disproportionate, and then it would need significant new function to handle > newer IBM Z concepts. Normally if something is made "open source" you are > starting from something which works and builds, but the owner doesn't want to > continue to support it. In this case, it's barely working and can't be > built. For its last few years IBM could only offer help with using it and > could not actually change anything, which is why it had to be functionally > stabilised. > > All of the other components of HLASM and the Toolkit are in Assembler or PL/X > and were still being actively maintained (using VM/CMS as the primary > development platform) when I retired just over a year ago. ASMPUT was a > weird special case inherited from a different world. > > Jonathan Scott > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <[email protected]> On > Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin > Sent: 18 March 2026 18:31 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Whither ASMPUT? > > On 3/18/26 12:08, Jonathan Scott wrote: >> gil wrote: >>> This feels like an argument for opening the source; GPL. >> We discussed the idea of open source on the mailing list back in 2021. As I >> said back then, other IBM internal teams were given a copy of ASMPUT with a >> view to incorporating similar capabilities into other tools, so I think IBM >> might want to keep hold of the rights, even though I'm not personally aware >> of any specific replacement tool. >> .... > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dog_in_the_Manger> > > -- > gil > >
