Programming Language for Business or PL/B is a business-oriented programming language originally called DATABUS and designed by Datapoint in the early 1970s as an alternative to COBOL because its 8-bit computers could not fit COBOL into their limited memory, and because COBOL did not at the time have facilities to deal with Datapoint's built-in keyboard and screen.
A version of DATABUS became an ANSI standard, and the name PL/B was adopted when Datapoint refused to release its trademark on the DATABUS name.
Much like Java and .NET, PL/B programs are compiled into an intermediate byte-code, which is then interpreted by a runtime library. Because of this, many PL/B programs can run on DOS, Unix, Linux, and Windows operating systems. The PL/B development environments are influenced by Java and Visual Basic, and offer many of the same features found in those languages. PL/B (Databus) is actively used all over the world, and has several forums on the Internet dedicated to supporting software developers.
External links
- ANSI PL/B Standards Committee
- An implementation of PL/B by Sunbelt Computer Systems
- Brainbuild PL/B Programming and Training Portal a resource portal for PL/B programmers