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From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: RE: IBM-ASCII-C-Etc
Message-ID: <1915@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-May-84 02:11:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1915
Posted: Sun May 13 02:11:18 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 14-May-84 01:19:38 EDT
References: <2587@ncsu.UUCP> <627@ariel.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 16

> The original IBM 360 assembler that we used in Kingston, NY in
> 1966 was actually a cross assembler which ran on IBSYS on a
> 7094 across the road.  We used a three tape rotation system.
> This is probably why the 360 had an ASCII bit in the PSW.

But didn't the 7094 use BCDIC (the six-bit predecessor to EBCDIC) rather
than ASCII?  There was probably an ASCII bit there because IBM wanted to
be able to support 8-bit ASCII when it came out - 7-bit ASCII was already
out (or coming out soon), and there was an 8-bit version in the works - but
it turned out the final version of 8-bit ASCII was not going to be what
IBM expected it to be and not what the 360 implemented.  For that reason,
and because converting all the 360 hardware and software to ASCII would
have been a major undertaking, IBM canned the ASCII mode in the 370.

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy