You are correct that most mainframe development was done in COBOL or FORTRAN running under MVS back then. However, we were coding in C & assembler on a mainframe running an obscure IBM OS called VSE for my project. FORTRAN & COBOL were supported languages, but we were trying to port the existing tape handling code that was written in assembler to C so that we could then recompile it and run it under UNIX.
This was a partnership between Microsoft and Telecheck and they put every project on hold to face the Y2K challenge. After we got past Y2K, they sold the company, and we moved everything to MVS and Unix. MVS did the tape handling and UNIX hosted the Oracle DB and the product development just like God intended. ;)
You are correct that most mainframe development was done in COBOL or FORTRAN running under MVS back then. However, we were coding in C & assembler on a mainframe running an obscure IBM OS called VSE for my project. FORTRAN & COBOL were supported languages, but we were trying to port the existing tape handling code that was written in assembler to C so that we could then recompile it and run it under UNIX.
This was a partnership between Microsoft and Telecheck and they put every project on hold to face the Y2K challenge. After we got past Y2K, they sold the company, and we moved everything to MVS and Unix. MVS did the tape handling and UNIX hosted the Oracle DB and the product development just like God intended. ;)