Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!umriscc!mcs213c.cs.umr.edu!mcastle From: mcastle@mcs213c.cs.umr.edu (Mike Castle {Nexus}) Newsgroups: comp.compression Subject: Re: COMPRESSING of binary data into mailable ASCII Message-ID: <2493@umriscc.isc.umr.edu> Date: 27 Mar 91 03:02:45 GMT References: <12485@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <12489@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Sender: news@umriscc.isc.umr.edu Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla Lines: 41 In article <12489@pt.cs.cmu.edu> tgl@g.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Tom Lane) writes: > >They avoid the ASCII characters above 'z' (codes 123-127), plus they leave >five lowercase letters unused. (Actually they use 'x' and 'z' for special >However, it'd be nice to hear from someone who uses non-ASCII mailers about >just which characters are safe. (Anybody have an EBCDIC character chart >handy?) One thing that might be good to avoid is putting '.' at the start >of a line, which btoa will do quite happily. > >-- > tom lane >Internet: tgl@cs.cmu.edu BITNET: tgl%cs.cmu.edu@cmuccvma You need an EBCDIC chart? Got one right here. :-> In doing a quick visual comparison of ASCII and EBCDIC (ASCII chart from Turbo Pascal 5.0 manual, EBCDIC from Assembler Language Programming: The IBM System/370 Family by George Struble), and limiting myself to the ASCII chars from 32 (space) to 126 (tilde) I notice the following differences: Ascii 91 ([ left bracket) dne in EBCDIC Ascii 93 (] right bracket) dne in EBCDIC Ascii 94 (^ caret) dne in EBCDIC Ascii 96 (` back quote) dne in EBCDIC 126-32+1=95 characters 96 if you count then cent sign (which procomm refuses to let me enter with alt-155) Just to add confusion to all this :->, brackets [] are displayable on 3270 terminals, they're just not what the ascii bracket get mapped to, and don't really exist in EBCDIC (actually, lot's of neat characters you can get 3270 terminals to display that don't exist EBCDIC). If anyone wants to test mailers, mail me your sample sets at s087891@umrvma.umr.edu -- Mike Castle (Nexus) S087891@UMRVMA.UMR.EDU (preferred) | XEDIT: Emacs mcastle@mcs213k.cs.umr.edu (unix mail-YEACH!)| on a REAL Life is like a clock: You can work constantly, and be right | operating all the time, or not work at all, and be right twice a day. | system. :->