Author: Mark Whitfield

Welcome to my site! After graduating in Computing in 1990, I accepted a position as a programmer at a Runcorn based software house specialising in electronic banking software, namely sp/ARCHITECT-BANK on Tandem Computers (now HPE NonStop). This was before the internet became more prevalent and so the notion of enabling desktop access to company accounts for inter-account transfers and book keeping was still quite a cutting edge idea (and smartphones only ever hinted at in Space 1999). The company was called The Software Partnership (which was taken over by Deluxe Data in 1994). I spent 5 years in Runcorn developing code for SP/ARCHITECT for various banks like TSB, Bank of Scotland, Rabobank and Girofon (Denmark) to name but a few. I then moved onto a software house in Salford Quays for further bank facing projects. After a further 23 years in the IT industry and now a Senior IT Project Manager (both Agile and Waterfall delivery), I thought I would echo out my Career Profile in this corner of the internet for quick and easy access.

Transaction Application Language – TAL on HP HPE Nonstop mainframes (previously Tandem)

Transaction Application Language

Programming language

TAL User Defined Language for Notepad++ | sybond/project — Transaction Application Language – TAL on HP HPE Nonstop mainframes (previously Tandem)

Transaction Application Language or TAL is a block-structured, procedural language optimized for use on Tandem hardware. TAL resembles a cross between C and Pascal. It was the original system programming language for the Tandem Computers CISC machines, which had no assembler.

Source: Wikipedia

Transaction Application Language or TAL (originally “Tandem Application Language”) is a block-structured,^[1] procedural language optimized for use on Tandem (and later HP NonStop) hardware. TAL resembles a cross between C and Pascal. It was the original system programming language for the Tandem Computers CISC machines, which had no assembler.^[2]

Transaction Programming Language (TAL)
Paradigm	Block-structured procedural language
Developer	Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (originally Tandem Computers)
First appeared	mid 1970s
Platform	MIPS, Itanium, x86-64
OS	NonStop OS
License	Proprietary commercial software
File formats	unstructured, Enscribe, NonStop SQL/MP, NonStop SQL/MX
Dialects
TAL, pTAL, epTAL
Influenced by
ALGOL, Pascal, C

The design concept of TAL, an evolution of Hewlett-Packard‘s SPL, was intimately associated and optimized with a microprogrammed CISC instruction set. Each TAL statement could easily compile into a sequence of instructions that manipulated data on a transient floating register stack. The register stack itself floated at the crest of the program’s memory allocation and call stack.

The language itself has the appearance of ALGOL or Pascal, with BEGIN and END statements. However, its semantics are far more like C. It does not permit indefinite levels of procedure nesting, it does not pass complex structured arguments by value, and it does not strictly type most variable references. Programming techniques are much like C using pointers to structures, occasional overlays, deliberate string handling and casts when appropriate.

Available datatypes include 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit and (introduced later) 64-bit integers.^[3] Microcode level support was available for null terminated character strings. However, this is not commonly used.

Originally the Tandem NonStop operating system was written in TAL. Much of it has since been rewritten in C and TAL has been deprecated for new development.

In the migration from CISC to RISC, TAL was updated/replaced with pTAL – compilers allowed TAL to be re-compiled into Native RISC Applications. Later, the epTAL compiler was introduced for Itanium processors.

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PMBOK 8 – The Hidden Layers

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Agile Scrum Anti-Patterns

Requirements Documentation – BRD, SRS, User Stories and Use Cases

Requirements Documentation – BRD, SRS, User Stories and Use Cases

Change Management ideas for Program Managers

Senior Business Analyst BA starts with strong basics

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Agile Scrum Process Design

The Role of a Project Manager, an Overview

Five Agile Scrum Ceremonies every Agile Team should Master

PMBOK Evolution Timeline – 1996 to 2025

sp/ARCHITECT-BANK – developed by a Runcorn-based software house called The Software Partnership (later acquired by Deluxe Data in 1994)

“sp/architect nonstop tandem” refers to SP/ARCHITECT-BANK, an electronic banking software that ran on the highly available, fault-tolerant Tandem NonStop servers (now part of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or HPE, NonStop product line).

SP/ARCHITECT-BANK Software

Function: Developed as an electronic banking software package, it enabled functions like desktop access to company accounts, inter-account transfers, and bookkeeping, which was considered cutting-edge in the early 1990s.
Developer: The software was developed by a Runcorn-based software house called The Software Partnership (later acquired by Deluxe Data in 1994).
Users: Various banks, including TSB, Bank of Scotland, Rabobank, and Girofon (Denmark), used the software.

Tandem NonStop Servers

The NonStop servers, originally from Tandem Computers Inc., are known for their extreme reliability and scalability, making them suitable for mission-critical applications in finance, telecommunications, and retail.

Key architectural features include:

Fault Tolerance: The systems use redundant components (processors, storage, controllers, power supplies) with a “shared-nothing” architecture to ensure continuous operation even if a component fails.
Operating System: They use a proprietary, message-based operating system, the NonStop Kernel (NSK, originally Guardian), which manages fault detection and failover automatically, without human intervention.
Current Status: Tandem was acquired by Compaq in 1997, and Compaq was subsequently acquired by HP in 2002. The NonStop product line is now offered by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). More information is available on the HPE website.