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From: rjh@ihuxj.UUCP (Randolph J. Herber)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: Does C depend on ASCII?
Message-ID: <498@ihuxj.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-May-84 11:10:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxj.498
Posted: Thu May 10 11:10:26 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 12-May-84 08:16:25 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 39

>From eli Wed May  9 22:26 EDT 1984 remote from houxq
>FROM: e.d.mantel
>TO: ihuxj!rjh
>DATE: 09 May 1984  22:26 EST
>SUBJECT: IBM 360 and ASCII mode
>
>I'm sure your addendum to the IBM == EBCDIC discussion was intended
>to be helpful, but I don't think you succeeded.
>
>I happen to know what an EC PSW is; most of the people reading the
>net have a chance at understanding that packed decimal is a data format,
>but are unlikely to know what EC PSWs have to do with ASCII support.
>
>The point of the prior articles in this discussion was the fact that the
>CPU contains very little character code dependency.  I presume the point
>of your article was:
>	Once upon a time, IBM had an ASCII mode of operation.  All
>	this did was allow packed decimal operations to be done in
>	ASCII (whatever it means to have ASCII packed decimal!).  A
>	while ago (when the 370 line was introduced), IBM decided that,
>	as far as they were concerned, ASCII was not needed, and dropped
>	support for it.
>
>As for the reasons for UTS being ASCII-based, this has many advantages.  It
>is stretching the definition of "reliability" when you really want to say
>things like portability and compatibility.  As for efficiency, it's such
>a minute consideration compared to the portability and compatibility issues
>that there's no need to mention it.
>
>						Eli Mantel

I thank Eli for his clarification; and, basically, I agree with what
he said.  I have his permission to quote this private communication.

	Randolph J. Herber, Amdahl Senior Systems Engineer,
	..!ihnp4!ihuxj!rjh,
	(work) (312) 979-6554 or AT&T Cornet 8-367-6554,
	(off.) Amdahl Corp., Suite 250, 6400 Shafer, Rosemont, IL 60018,
	       (312) 692-7520