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From: gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.unix,net.arch,net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Does C depend on ASCII?
Message-ID: <1262@proper.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-May-84 23:57:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: proper.1262
Posted: Mon May 21 23:57:03 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 26-May-84 09:20:08 EDT
References: <6999@umcp-cs.UUCP>, <4667@amd70.UUCP>
Organization: Proper UNIX, Oakland, CA
Lines: 25
Keywords: UTS,ASCII,EBCDIC,C

#
Virtually ALL the application programs on UTS written in C assume
that ASCII is the base character set.  In fact, many of the
programs you are familiar with on other architectures are just
the same on UTS.  (but -- see below about type ``char'').

The ``virtually'' refers to two cases (that I know of) where EBCDIC
is used: in device drivers for EBCDIC-based devices (like 3270's
(ibm tubes)), and programs that read/write volume lables on tapes
or disks.  The drivers are doing EBCDIC <--> ASCII translations, and the
volume labels are artifacts of an Amdahl-compatable environment.

The applications (and for the most part systems) programmer need
never be aware of EBCDIC on UTS.

Oh, by the way, the type ``char'' is unsigned in UTS/370-architecture,
so for all you people who've been writing:

	char c;
	while ((c = getc()) != EOF) ...

... you have frustrated my work very much ....


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