[bencollier49]

The issue typically isn't just the COBOL itself, but the surrounding architecture. This will take in the nuances of the underlying operating system, system language operations and batch tasks.

For example, the COBOL might potentially have been on an ICL VME system. This will undoubtedly have a lot of support code written in things like SCL (System Control Language), and potentially even 68k assembly.

There are companies which specialise in migrating COBOL code from legacy environments. This can involve migrating the COBOL code itself to a different variant and rigorously testing it, and then often introducing utilities which replace operating system functionality which was present on the original mainframe.

The alternative is to "salami slice" bits of functionality into modern services written afresh, and slowly work towards decommissioning the old setup, but often this has to be done at the same time as a migration to modern hardware, due to the scale of the systems involved and the time taken for these sorts of projects to complete.

[imglorp]

Why would there be any 68k assembly floating around in this domain?