Course details

Below are all the courses we have available for your z/OS application programmer training

z/OS course materials
Course title	Description / Prerequisite

	General / Introduction Courses
A010: Introduction to Application Programming (z/OS)	Intended audience: People with aptitude but no background in computers; these could be new hires or employees looking to move into your data processing staff The narrative: We introduce and define terms and concepts related to application programming on any system, and have the students create a rough design for a report application by having the instructor role-play as a warehouse manager: describe the data, sketch out the report layout, describe how input leads to output; then discuss program design, and testing concepts Click to see the first section. 3 discussion / paper labs 2 days; 180 pages, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: Just an apptitude for programming
A500: Introduction to z/OS	Intended audience: Developers new to IBM mainframes (or familiar with IBM mainframes but not familiar with z/OS). These could be people with technical backgrounds in other computing platforms The narrative: Overview of z/Architecture, terms and vocabulary, support for Unicode, Db2, CICS, IMS, Language Environment and supported languages, the z/OS UNIX System Services story, communications possibilities Click to see the first section. 1 day; 198 pages, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequsite: familiarity with any non-z/OS system

	TSO, CLIST, REXX, ISPF / Dialog Manager
A633: TSO/ISPF in z/OS	Intended audience: Programmers learning how to get work done in z/OS; new system support staff might also benefit. The narrative: For most z/OS shops, ISPF is the primary tool for coding, compiling / assembling, binding / linking, and testing. This course provides a thorough introduction for the novice in how to navigate around and use this tool effectively. From logging on and understanding panel layouts and action bars, setting function key values, to techniques for creating, editing, deleting, renaming data sets, running batch jobs and viewing output, the student gains a huge amount of skills in a very short time. Click to see the first section. 17 machine exercises 3 days; 440 pages, 2-page summary sheet, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: None, although it helps to have some background such as found in "Introduction to Application Programming (z/OS)"
A636: ISPF Update and Refresh	Intended audience: Programmers / developers who use ISPF and could benefit from its richer capabilities The narrative: The experienced ISPF user has deeper needs, centered around application development (searching for strings in large lists of datasets, comparing different levels of code or data). And with the growing use of exchanging files between z/OS and other platforms, it's helpful to learn ISPF techniques for handling ASCII and Unicode data. Finally we cover how to create basic edit macros so the student can begin to build edit tools helpful for them and their team. Click to see the first section. 10 hands on machine exercises 2 days; 198 pages, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience.
A650: TSO CLIST Programming in z/OS	Intended audience: Programmers who need to maintain or create CLIST scripts The narrative: The TSO environment, and basic commands, CLIST (command list) fundamentals: command procedure statement, symbolic variables, EXEC TSO command, symbolic susbstitution, control variables, built-in functions, conditional logic, SELECT statement, running CLISTs from DSLIST, attention routines, working with files, printing and copying, PDSE and VSAM support, LISTDSI, error handling, PROC statement and parameters, global variables, trapping command output, running programs in foreground (TSO 'CALL'), submitting jobs to the background (batch), the TSO EDIT command, TRANSMIT and RECEIVE Click to see the first section. 13 standard and two optional hands-on machine exercises. 3 days; 322 pages, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience.
A750: TSO REXX Programming in z/OS	Intended audience: Programmers who need to maintain or create REXX scripts The narrative: The TSO environment, and basic commands, REXX fundamentals: tokens, strings, operators; TSO EXEC command, REXX operators, built-in functions, numerics, the stack, parsing, logic structures, running EXECs from DSLIST, interrupting an EXEC, debugging, working with files, printing and copying, PDSE and VSAM support, LISTDSI, record I/O, buffers and stacks, compound symbols, subroutines, user-written functions, string manipulation, trapping output from a command, running programs in foreground (TSO 'CALL'), running programs and EXECs in the background (batch), REXX and Dialog Manager, TRANSMIT and RECEIVE, optional: the REXX compiler Click to see the first section. 14 hands on machine exercises. 5 days; 514 pages, summary of REXX commands and TSO commands covered, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience.
A810: Developing Dialog Manager Applications in z/OS	Intended audience: Programmers who need to create or maintain ISPF dialogs that interface with CLISTs, REXX execs, or compiled programs. The narrative: This fun class assumes prior knowledge of REXX or CLIST and then moves on to provide a thorough introduction to developing, coding, testing, and maintaining applications to be run under the ISPF environment. Topics: Panel definition language ISPF and system variables and variable services ISPF service functions (LIBDEF, DISPLAY, LMxxxx, etc.) ISPF messages and message services File processing Help: index, tutorials Pop up windows Scrollable fields Menus Debugging and tracing Edit, View, and Browse services Creating and using keylists Creating and using command tables ISPF tables File tailoring Introduction to Common User Access (CUA) Introduction to Dialog Tag Language ISPPDTLC service z/OS Unix files Sample code in Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C 16 machine exercises Special note:Although this is defined as a five day course, it can be reduced to four days by omitting topics not used in your installation; and it has so much content it might take 6 or 7 days for a more relaxed, more in depth pace. Click to see the first section. 5 days; 700 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and either "TSO REXX programming in z/OS" or "TSO CLIST Programming in z/OS" or equivalent experience.

	JCL and Utilities
B610: z/OS JCL and Utilities	Intended audience: Programmers / developers who need to submit jobs to the batch The narrative: Operating System concepts, the road to z/OS, job management and workflow, how JCL describes resources, JCL syntax, submitting a job, examining job output, basic utilities, introduction to SORT, memory management, condition codes, JCL procedures, nested procedures, information sources Click to see the first section. 13 hands on machine exercises. 3 days; 338 pages, JCL summary sheet, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience.
A700: ISPF and JCL on z/OS	Intended audience: Programmers learning how to get work done in z/OS; new system support staff might also benefit. The narrative: This is a mashup of "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and "z/OS JCL and Utilities", enabling an ISPF / JCL package to fit into a five day work week. This is done by eliminating redundant passages and dropping a few topics. The omitted topics are: reference lists; the Workplace shell; ISPF VSAM support; DELETE and LISTC TSO commands Click to see the first section. 27 hands on machine exercises 5 days; 672 pages, ISPF summary sheet, JCL summary sheet, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: None, although it helps to have some background such as found in "Introduction to Application Programming (z/OS)"
B625: Using DFSORT and ICETOOL	Intended audience: Programmers / support staff who need to use IBM's DFSORT product The narrative: Basic DFSORT; using SORT to do a copy; symbolic names and literals; converting values; working with date and time formats; DFSORT and HTML; z/OS UNIX files; ASCII files; VSAM support; ICEGENER; sort control statements (INCLUDE, OMIT, INREC, SORT, OUTREC), operands (PARSE, BUILD, OVERLAY, FINDREP, OUTFIL, ALTSEQ, RECORD, MERGE, OPTION, JOINKEYS), ICETOOL (COPY, COUNT, DEFAULTS, MERGE, MODE, RANGE, SORT, STATS, UNIQUE, VERIFY, DISPLAY, OCCUR, RESIZE, DATASORT, SUBSET, SELECT, SPLICE) 20 hands on machine exercises Click to see the first section. 4 days; 562 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: "z/OS JCL and Utilities", or equivalent experience.

	Assembler Language
C410: z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 1: Beginnings	Intended audience: Programmers beginning their journey into Assembler language The narrative: Programming concepts for mainframe, instruction formats, basic program structure, describing data, defining constants and storage areas, file accessing techniques, compares, branches, linkages, record processing, packed decimal, redefining storage, data structures, introduction to debugging, editing packed decimal data, immediate instructions, binary integer data, logical arithmetic, literals, loop control, table processing, multiple base registers, DSECTs, bit manipulation, shift instructions, string manipulation Click to see the first section. 14 hands on machine exercises. 5 days; 402 pages, instruction summary, index; last updated: 2026 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and "z/OS JCL and Utilities", or equivalent experience.
C414: z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 2: Interfaces	Intended audience: Programmers continuing their journey into Assembler language The narrative: Standard program linkage conventions, file handling, subroutines and the program binder, CALL, program maintenance, debugging, useful system services, variable length records, QSAM locate mode, dynamic program linkages, dynamic storage management, reentrant programs, AMODE 31 issues Click to see the first section. 9 hands-on machine exercises 3 days; 296 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 1".
C510: z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 3: z/Architecture Update	Intended audience: Programmers needing to understand and use the new hardware and software services to support 64-bit addressing The narrative: The focus is on the changes introduced with z/Architecture machines and later z/OS Assembler language features, macro changes; 64-bit arithmetic; AMODE 64 considerations; workng with ASCII and Unicode data; additional hardware instructions (over 500 instructions are covered); structure of the 64-bit address space; linkage conventions and save areas Click to see the first section. 13 hands on machine exercises. 4 days; 560 pages including 45 page index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "z/OS Assembler Programming, Part 2" or equivalent experience.

	COBOL
D715: Structured COBOL Workshop for Enterprise COBOL	Intended audience: Programmers beginning their journey into COBOL The narrative: Foundation: hardware, software, instructions, programs, compiling and binding, COBOL Basics: character set, words, punctuation; program structure; figurative constants, editing data (edit pictures), describing data, processing data (files), move mode vs locate mode, perform, general program structure and design: pseudocode; conditional statements, numeric data (packed decimal and binary), arithmetic instructions, the evaluate statement, string manipulation, intrinsic functions, working with print files, control breaks, match-merge, miscellaneous Click to see the first section. 17 hands-on machine exercises 5 days; 524 pages, appendix, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience.
D725: Advanced Topics in COBOL	Intended audience: Beginning COBOL programmers who need to expand their skills in this language. The narrative: Subroutines, static vs. dynamic linkages; special registers, null terminated strings, local-storage, recursive programs, pointers (procedure-pointers, function-pointers, Addres Of special register, dynamic file allocation, tables (with subscripts and indexes), variable length records, string handling, and, optionally, the COBOL SORT and MERGE verbs. Click to see the first section. 12 hands-on machine exercises 3 days; 316 pages, appendix, index; last updated: 2024 Prerequisite: "Structured COBOL Workshop for Enterprise COBOL", or equivalent experience.
D732: Enterprise COBOL Debugging and Maintenance	Intended audience: COBOL programmers who need to solve program errors The narrative: Language Environment (LE): LE completion codes, LE messages, LE condition handling, LE run-time parameters, LE debugging services - CEE3DMP, CEE3ABD, CEETEST; debugging strategy; system completion codes; anatomy of a COBOL compile listing; the school of footprints and breadcrumbs; dump reading: SYSUDUMP and CEEDUMP; relevant compiler options; subroutine linkage options; the program binder; COBOL declaratives (I/O and DEBUGGING); Click to see the first section. 4 hands-on machine exercises 2 days; 314 pages, appendices, index; 2 days; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: "Advanced Topics in COBOL (Enterprise COBOL, z/OS)", or equivalent experience.

	VSAM
G510: VSAM With Access Method Services	Intended audience: Application programmers, in any language, who need to understand the structures of VSAM files and how to use the IDCAMS utility. The narrative: VSAM organizations (ESDS, KSDS, RRDS, LSDS, AIX); estimating space requirements for VSAM data sets; IDCAMS JCL requirements and commands (DEFINE CLUSTER, REPRO, PRINT, DELETE, EXPORT, IMPORT, VERIFY, ALTER, EXAMINE); reusable data sets; performance tuning hints; extended format KSDS; record level sharing; recoverable spheres Click to see the first section. 5 hands on machine exercises 2 days; 196 pages, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS", or equivalent experience. Status: Updated and available.
D540: VSAM for COBOL Programmers	Intended audience: COBOL application programmers who need to understand VSAM files and how to process them using COBOL. The narrative: VSAM organizations (ESDS, KSDS, RRDS, LSDS, AIX); IDCAMS JCL requirements and commands (DEFINE CLUSTER, REPRO, PRINT, DELETE); defining VSAM data sets in a COBOL program; OPEN and CLOSE; file position indicator; file status data items; loading or extending data into an ESDS VSAM data set; retrieving ESDS records sequentially; update in place (REWRITE); loading or extending KSDS data sets; processing a KSDS sequentially; the START verb; random file processing; dynamic processing; DELETE a record; alternate indexes; loading or extending RRDS data sets; sequential and random processing of RRDS; Click to see the first section. 5 standard and one optional hands on machine exercises 2 days; 260 pages, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: Experience writing COBOL programs.
E540: VSAM for PL/I Programmers	Intended audience: PL/I application programmers who need to understand VSAM files and how to process them using PL/I. The narrative: VSAM organizations (ESDS, KSDS, RRDS, LSDS, AIX); IDCAMS JCL requirements and commands (DEFINE CLUSTER, REPRO, PRINT, DELETE); defining VSAM data sets in a PL/I program (DECLARE); OPEN and CLOSE; file position indicator; file status data items; loading or extending data into an ESDS VSAM data set; retrieving ESDS records sequentially; update in place (REWRITE); loading or extending KSDS data sets; processing a KSDS sequentially; LOCATE mode processing; random file processing; dynamic processing; DELETE a record; alternate indexes; loading or extending RRDS data sets; sequential and random processing of RRDS; Click to see the first section. 4 standard and one optional hands on machine exercises 2 days; 186 pages, index; last updated: 2025 Prerequisite: Experience writing PL/I programs.

	Language Environment
M512: Using LE Services in z/OS	Intended audience: Experienced programmers (Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, and / or C) who need to use Language Environment (LE) callable services The narrative: LE concepts and terms; tokens, return codes; messaging services and inserts; debugging services, storage management services; condition handling; interlanguage communication; Assembler considerations; date and time services; international support; nested enclaves; C/C++ and XPLINK; building loadable text file messages using CEEBLDTX REXX exec; symbolic feedback codes; callable services; Assembler macros available; LE run-time parameters Click to see the first section. 8 hands on machine exercises 3 days; 618 pages, appendices, index; last updated: 2026 (Note: The actual duration varies depending on how many programming languages you cover) Prerequisite: "TSO/ISPF in z/OS" and experience with one of these programming languages: Assembler, COBOL, PL/I, C.


	Technical Papers
	General z/OS thoughts
z/OS, Language Environment, and UNIX: How They Work Together	A description of how all these components complement each other. Very rich. 157 pages; USD 10.00
Creating Modern Business Computer Applications on z/OS	A survey of the skills an IT group will likely need as they move into the z/OS world running z/OS UNIX and maybe hosting a website on their mainframe 24 pages; USD 5.00

	z/OS Assembler Language
Doing Packed Decimal Arithmetic in Assembler	A step by step description of using the packed decimal instruction set 100 pages; USD 12.00
Writing Reentrant Programs	Definition of reentrant programs, techniques to use for creating reentrant programs, a sample program 26 pages; USD 6.50
Applications Assembler Programming for z: a discourse	Discussion of changes brought about by system z hardware and z/OS for existing Assembler programs. A look at 64-bit registers, baseless programming, relative branching, the long displacement facility, the extended immediate facility 47 pages; USD 12.00
I/O and AMODE 31	Discussion of concerns to focus on when moving existing Assembler programs to work above the line 7 pages; USD 3.00
z/OS Control Blocks for Beginners	Exploration of how z/OS uses control blocks to manage work. Addresses, pointers, chains, anchors, ASID, ASCB, RCT, TCB, PRB, SVRB, initiators, STC, dump task, XTLST, CDE, data areas, CVT, PSA, DDLIST command, SYSUDUMP. Note that the links on page 48 are no longer working; instead use http://gsf-soft.com/zOS-links.html for the first and http://www.longpelaexpertise.com.au/ for the second. 52 pages; USD 10.00

z/OS Study CenterAvailable Courses and supplemental papers

z/OS Study Center
Available Courses
and supplemental papers