Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!hellgate.utah.edu!helios.ee.lbl.gov!lbl-csam.arpa!antony
From: antony@lbl-csam.arpa (Antony A. Courtney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Decoded Net files
Message-ID: <3838@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Date: 19 Sep 89 23:08:08 GMT
References: <8909080255.AA29852@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <22004@cup.portal.com> <1989Sep17.143908.2056@gdt.bath.ac.uk> <2657@water.waterloo.edu>
Sender: usenet@helios.ee.lbl.gov
Reply-To: antony@lbl-csam.arpa (Antony A. Courtney)
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley
Lines: 44

In article <2657@water.waterloo.edu> ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu (Lee Dickey) writes:
>In article <1989Sep17.143908.2056@gdt.bath.ac.uk> exspes@gdr.bath.ac.uk (P E Smee) writes:
>>
>>It is generally (but not invariable) true that if you push an ASCII text
>>file from an ASCII machine through an IBM EBCDIC machine and then back
>>to an ASCII machine, you will not end up with an identical file.  The
>>two character coding schemes do not match.
>
>What Paul mentions here is particularly painful for academics in the
>UK who wish to correspond with others outside and who could benefit
>from their gateway to EARN (and BITNET).  *The* gateway between BITNET
>and all other academic sites in the UK is ACUKRL, at Rutherford Labs.
>They are notorious for this problem, they know about it, and seem
>to take the attitude that the world should conform to their way
>of doing things.  Rutherford would turn in his grave.
>
>
>-- 
>    L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo.
>	ljdickey@water.UWaterloo.ca	ljdickey@water.BITNET
>	ljdickey@water.UUCP		..!uunet!watmath!water!ljdickey
>	ljdickey@water.waterloo.edu	


There is a similar problem here in the US, as there are still plenty of
gateways using EBCDIC.  I suggest you contact Tim Koonce, a Ph.D. student in
mathematics at U.C. Berkeley, who has developed a protocol for binary file
transfer which is not inhibited by ASCII->EBCDIC->ASCII conversion.  His email
address is:
  koonce@brahms.berkeley.edu
  koonce@ucbbrahms.bitnet
  ...ucbvax!brahms!koonce

(Anyone who cant get their mailer to find ucbvax is in poor shape. :) )

Good Luck! 

		-Antony A. Courtney

--
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Antony A. Courtney				antony@lbl.gov
Advanced Development Group			ucbvax!lbl-csam.arpa!antony
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory			AACourtney@lbl.gov