On Wed, 8 May 2024 12:05:26 -0400, Phil Smith III wrote: >"I have seen this before"--what is "this"? > I believe he's referring to my citation of the classic rant: <https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos/3.1.0?topic=processing-tso-command-environment>
>I'm curious about your assertion that ASCII/EBCDIC cannot translate cleanly. >With the right EBCDIC code page, we do this every day. The basic etoa() and >atoe() work fine, have not caused problems--and we care a lot about specific >characters, as we support "encrypt in EBCDIC, decrypt in ASCII" and vice versa >with Format-Preserving Encryption. > . I agree emphatically. Bijective translations exist between IBM037, IBM500, and IBM1047 (is any of those not "EBCDIC"? ) and ISO8859-1. I'm not sure how "proprietary" applies". Will the "real EBCDIC" please stand up! >It seems clear that if IBM had inflicted (no scare quotes needed) ASCII as the >native encoding for S/360, there would have been more resistance. OTOH it's >not clear what realistic choice those customers would have had. There is >always the "If I have to do a conversion, I will at least look at >alternatives", and with IBM's fate hanging on the success of S/360, maybe that >would have been the proverbial straw; we'll never know. > >-----Original Message----- >From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of >Tom Marchant >Sent: Wednesday, May 8, 2024 11:37 AM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: EBCDIC/ASCII - FTP > >I have seen this before, and I am not persuaded. I find it interesting that >all of the references provided were written by Mr. Beemer himself, some of >them with another author. > >Perhaps, in hindsight it would have been better if IBM had made the >System/360 an ASCII only machine. But at the time, ASCII was new and >relatively unknown. As it was, the market had generally rejected ASCII on >System/360, so the USASCII bit was removed with the introduction of >System/370 in 1970. > >Both ASCII and EBCDIC are limited. ASCII, even more so because it is a >7 bit code, though there are proprietary 8 bit extensions. No one knew in 1964 >that Unicode would later be designed based upon ASCII. > >The claim that "A 1-to-1 translation between the two [ASCII and EBCDIC] >exists" is false.Each includes characters that are not defined in the other. >This has always been the case. > >If IBM had "inflicted" ASCII on its customers in 1964, would the >System/360 have had the wide acceptance that it did? We will never know. > >According to "Architecture of System/360" >https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.gatech.edu/dist/8/175/files/2015/08/IBM-360.pdf > ><quote> >The reasons against such exclusive adoption was the widespread use of the BCD >code derived from and easily translated to the IBM card code. To facilitate >use of both codes, the central processing units are designed with a high >degree of code independence, with generalized code translation facilities, and >with program-selectable BCD or ASCII modes for code-dependent instructions. >Neverthe- less, a choice had to be made for the code-sensitive I/O devices and >for the programming support, and the solution was to offer both codes, fully >supported, as a user option. >Systems with either option will, of course, easily read or write I/O media >with the other code. ></quote> > >Aside from that, it wasn't the "P-bit", but the A bit. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
