Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ncsu.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!mcnc!ncsu!fostel
From: fostel@ncsu.UUCP (Gary Fostel)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: RE: IBM-ASCII-C-Etc
Message-ID: <2587@ncsu.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-May-84 12:51:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncsu.2587
Posted: Fri May 11 12:51:59 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 13-May-84 07:10:21 EDT
Organization: N.C. State University, Raleigh
Lines: 33


    C'mon, its not hard to imagine how the character set could make quite
    a differnce -- lots of those very unpleasant sorts of problems:

        Sign extension.  Ebcdic uses all eight bits -- are YOU sure your
        code/compiler is up to the stringint distinction between signed
        and unsigned excitement?

        Hashcodes developed for ascii values may perform differently with
        ebcdic input.

        Ebcdic has a different layout pattern -- ascii is quite linear and
        dense, while ebcdic is , well just say its different and go find a
        green card (or is it yellow now?) and take a look.  How many tricks do
        we all use from time to time, assumptions like lower case "b" and upper
        case "B" being related by a constant?  Is it true in ebcdic?  And we
        all know that "B" = "A" + 1 right.  But is it true in ebdic?  

        And of course then there are a few peculiarities of ebcdic, in terms
        of where the control chars go.  Imagine if you had to go through your
        code and find every place you ever stuck in an octal constant to
        be compared with, say form feed, newline, tab, escape! for gossakes
        those heathens at Big Blue don't use the same values!

    Now ask youself, would Y-O-U want the job of completeing this list, little
    by little as you tried to convert our code to an ebcdic system? Any wonder
    your counterpart at Ahmdahl came up with good reasons not to try?

    (By the way, the magic ASCII/EBCDIC bit some of you may recall seeing in
    the IBM Priciples of Op in the PSW, was never used and was dropped in the
    transition from 360 to 370.  Any guesses why it was there originally?)
    ----GaryFostel----