AT&T Joining OSF - ASCII

[Crispin Goswell]

In article <24566 at bu-cs.BU.EDU> madd at bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost) writes:
>In article <381 at infmx.UUCP> aland at infmx.UUCP (Dr. Scump) writes:
>|And *what* is the big problem with EBCDIC, except that "it's not ASCII"?
>
>How about the "n" different versions of EBCDIC?  It's an IBM standard
>and yet it's different on the three different types of IBM hardware I
>use (IBM System/32, System/23 Datamaster, and System/34, 36, and 38).
>ASCII is ASCII anywhere....

Not in Europe it isn't. Pick up a manual for a Japanese matrix printer some
time: you'll find at least ten variants. (Please do not remind me that Japan
is not part of Europe).
Even in versions of ASCII for the same country you sometimes find that a
subset of &$#^~\_{}[]` get variously interchanged on printers or VDUs.

I would hazard a guess that the only reason that EBCDIC is still used is that
the installed base using EBCDIC is about as big as (or probably bigger than)
the installed base using ASCII.  Depressing, isn't it?
-- 

Name:   Crispin Goswell		 	  |-------|__   Informatics Department
Usenet: {... | mcvax}!ukc!rlinf!caag	  |  Tea  |  | Rutherford Appleton Lab
JANET:  caag at uk.ac.rl.inf		  \  Mug  /_/          Chilton, Didcot
ARPA:   caag%inf.rl.ac.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk \_____/           Oxon OX11 0QX, UK

"Break out the Jet-pack Umbrellas!" - The Penguin