I think we have to remember that people didn't communicate as easily or freely then as we do today, so specifications were far more localized than we'd suspect. If sites had 8 hole punched tape readers, it would be a sensible use. When modems came along, and a parity bit was part of the modem's protocol, it freed up that 8th bit. Lots of people hacking it to their own purposes. Someone with the luxury of a CRT going, "ooooh, I can generate extra characters, graphical elements, all sorts!" and before you know it, ASCII evolves by who communicates the best ;)
Fun times! dp On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 3:18 PM Norman Dunbar <nor...@dunbar-it.co.uk> wrote: > Hi Dave, > > strangely enough, I read that the 8th bit allowed parity as, the then, top > notch paper tapes could cope with an extra (8th) bit and it was put to good > use for a parity bit. I haven't read the various standards though, so > willing to be corrected. (Again!) > > > Cheers, > Norm. > -- > Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -- Dave Park d...@sinclairql.com _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List
