Unfortunately, that program, which was written in UNIVAC COBOL while I was working at the Vickers Division of Sperry Rand Corporation in 1972, has been lost in the mists of time. It was a little utility involved in cleaning up database files, and I decided to make it more interesting by making it rhyme.
This is not that difficult, because most sentences in COBOL are written such that the last word is a variable name or program destination which can be chosen by the programmer. Hence, by proper choices, rhyming is relatively easy. Maintaining metre is more difficult, but even so, freedom to choose variable names and the ability to use names as long as 31 characters gives a lot of freedom.
ADD NEW-SALE TO THE-SUM.
SET SALES-COUNT UP BY ONE.
PERFORM WE-SOLD-ANOTHER-BY-GUM.
GO CHECK-FOR-YET-MORE-FUN.
If you’re unfamiliar with COBOL, here is my floating point benchmark, based upon a lens design ray tracing algorithm, written in COBOL.