Setting EC mode did not force DAT on; that was an additional bit.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu> on behalf of Steve Thompson <ste...@copper.net> Sent: Monday, November 19, 2018 5:26 PM To: IBM-MAIN@listserv.ua.edu Subject: Re: So much for THAT excuse | Computerworld SHARK TANK Two things. Not all mainframes were EBCDIC based. Some were field data based yet handled the translation to/from ASCII and to/from EBCDIC. Burroughs used EBCDIC but sign bits were on the opposite end of a word as I recall. S/360 machines I worked on had a switch in the PSW to set them in ASCII mode. I don’t remember or know of any software that made use of this. So that bit was eventually required to be ON to force DAT or XA. I have forgotten what that bit was “stolen” for now. Just some more architecture history. Sent from my iPhone — small keyboarf, fat fungrs, stupd spell manglr. Expct mistaks > On Nov 19, 2018, at 4:11 PM, Pew, Curtis G <curtis....@austin.utexas.edu> > wrote: > >> On Nov 19, 2018, at 2:52 PM, Tony Harminc <t...@harminc.net> wrote: >> >> I'd say it's an "EBCDIC in an ASCII world" problem; not anything >> fundamentally wrong with EBCDIC. Imagine if the original IBM PC had >> been an EBCDIC machine. OS/2 and Windows would surely have followed, >> Unicode would've been EBCDIC-based, and we'd live in a different but >> not necessarily worse world. >> > > What’s “fundamentally wrongâ€� with EBCDIC is it’s non-standard. Sure, > as far as just one set of mappings of codes to characters there’s nothing > inherently superior about ASCII, but being a standard across different > vendors and operating systems makes ASCII superior. > > By the time the IBM PC came along, everybody outside the mainframe world had > standardized on ASCII; if it had used EBCDIC it probably wouldn’t have had > as much uptake. > > The truly sad thing is that Bob Bemer was working for IBM and had convinced > upper management of the importance of ASCII during the development of > System/360, but this understanding wasn’t communicated to the engineers, > programmers, and (notably) customers who needed to implement it. As a result, > those of us who work with z/OS, z/VM, and z/VSE are burdened by character > encoding issues that don’t face people on other systems/OS’s. > > I just spent an hour this very morning explaining to a developer why a > EBCDIC->ASCII process wasn’t translating square brackets and a few other > special characters the way he expected. If the System/360 community had > embraced ASCII, as IBM’s management had intended, I could have spent that > time doing something useful. > > -- > Pew, Curtis G > curtis....@austin.utexas.edu > ITS Systems/Core/Administrative Services > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > Ûˆ›Ýˆ NK Œ N ] > Ž�LˆKÛžH\›Z[˜È ÛžPT“RS�Ë“‘Uˆ Ü›ÝNƒB�ˆB�ˆIÙ Ø^H] > ÜÈ[ˆ‘P�ÑPÈ[ˆ[ˆTÐÒRH ÛÜ›ˆ ›Ø›[NÈ›Ý[ž][™ÃB�ˆ�[™[Y[�[ H Ü›Û™È Ú]P�ÑPˈ[XYÚ[™HYˆ HÜšYÚ[˜[P“HÈYB�ˆ™Y[ˆ[ˆP�ÑPÈXXÚ[™KˆÔË̈[™Ú[™ÝÜÈ ÛÝ[ Ý\™[ H]™H›ÛÝÙY > B�ˆ[šXÛÙH ÛÝ[ Ý™H™Y[ˆP�ÑPËX˜\ÙY > [™ ÙIÙ]™H[ˆHY™™\™[��]B�ˆ›Ý™XÙ\ÜØ\š[ H ÛÜœÙH ÛÜ› > ƒB�ˆBƒB•Ú]8 &\È8 '�[™[Y[�[ H ܛۙø 'H Ú]P�ÑPÈ\È]8 &\țۋ\Ý[™\™ > ˆÝ\™K\Ș\ˆ\È�\ÝÛ™H Ù]ÙˆX\ [™ÜÈÙˆÛÙ\È ÈÚ\˜XÝ\œÈ \™x > &\È›Ý[™È[š\™[� H Ý\\š[܈X›Ý]TÐÒRK�]™Z[™ÈH Ý[™\™XÜ›ÜÜÈY™™\™[� ™[™ÜœÈ[™Ü\˜][™È Þ\Ý[\ÈXZÙ\ÈTÐÒRH Ý\\š[Ü‹ƒBƒB�žH H [YH HP“HÈØ[YH[Û™Ë]™\žX›Ù HÝ] ÚYH HXZ[™œ˜[YH ÛÜ›Y Ý[™\™^™YÛˆTÐÒRNÈYˆ]Y \ÙYP�ÑPÈ] ›Ø˜X› H ÛÝ[¸ > > &]]™HY\È]XÚ \ ZÙKƒBƒB•H �[ H ØY [™È\È ]›Øˆ™[Y\ˆ Ø\È ÛÜšÚ[™È›ÜˆP“H[™YÛÛ�š[˜ÙY \ \ˆX[˜YÙ[Y[�Ùˆ H[\Ü�[˜ÙHÙˆTÐÒRH \š[™È H]™[ÜY[�ÙˆÞ\Ý[KÌÍŒ > �] \È [™\œÝ[™[™È Ø\Û¸ > &]ÛÛ[][šXØ]Y È H[™Ú[™Y\œË ›Ùܘ[[Y\œË[™ > ›ÝX› JHÝ\ÝÛY\œÈ ÚÈ™YYY È[\[Y[�] ˆ\ÈH ™\Ý[ > ÜÙHÙˆ \È ÚÈ ÛÜšÈ Ú] ‹ÓÔË ‹Õ“K[™ ‹Õ”ÑH\™H�\™[™YžHÚ\˜XÝ\ˆ[˜ÛÙ[™È\ÜÝY\È ]Û¸ > &]˜XÙH [ÜHÛˆÝ\ˆ Þ\Ý[\ËÓÔø > &\˃BƒB’H�\Ý Ü[�[ˆÝ\ˆ \È ™\žH[Ü›š[™È^ Z[š[™È ÈH]™[Ü\ˆ Ú HHP�ÑPËO�TÐÒRH ›ØÙ\ÜÈ Ø\Û¸ > > &] ˜[œÛ][™È Ü]X\™Hœ˜XÚÙ] È[™H™]ÈÝ\ˆ ÜXÚX[Ú\˜XÝ\œÈ H Ø^HH^ XÝY > ˆYˆ HÞ\Ý[KÌÍŒÛÛ[][š] HY[Xœ˜XÙYTÐÒRK\ÈP“x > &\ÈX[˜YÙ[Y[�Y[�[™Y > HÛÝ[]™H Ü[� ] [YHÚ[™È ÛÛY][™È \ÙY�[ > ƒBƒB‹KHB”]ËÝ\�\ÈÃB˜Ý\�\Ëœ]Ð]\Ý[‹�]^\Ë™Y CB’UÈÞ\Ý[\ËÐÛÜ™KÐYZ[š\Ý ˜]]™HÙ\�šXÙ\ÃBƒBƒB‹KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKCB‘›ÜˆP“KSPRSˆ ÝXœØÜšX™H > È ÚYÛ›Ù™ˆ > È\˜Ú]™HXØÙ\ÜÈ[œÝ �XÝ[ÛœËBœÙ[™[XZ[ È\Ý Ù\��\Ý Ù\�‹�XK™Y H Ú] HY\ÜØYÙNˆS‘“ÈP“KSPRSƒB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
