'Rewrite' is perhaps hyperbolic.  Case insensitive is rather different
from case sensitivec   The HLASM, DFSORT, C/C++ all have BIFs
functional;ly eq

On 2/23/13, Anne & Lynn Wheeler <[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] (Clark Morris) writes:
>> Actually there is a more subtle and hard to deal with reason.  Any
>> alphanumeric field comparison or sort on alphanumeric fields assumed
>> upper case only.  If case insensitivity were to be required, all of
>> them would have to be rewritten.  If not, other problems could arise.
>> This gets worse for non-English languages if possible.  Name and
>> address matching algorithms must be interesting even in monocase.
>
> there is discussion of some of this with respect to upper/lower case
> representation and originally ibm 360 was going to be ascii ... but
> Learson made one of the biggest "mistakes" of 360 ("The Biggest Computer
> Goof Ever"):
> http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM
>
> from above:
>
> I mention this because it is a classic software mistake. IBM was going
> to announce the 360 in 1964 April as an ASCII machine, but their
> printers and punches were not ready to handle ASCII, and IBM just HAD to
> announce. So T.V. Learson (my boss's boss) decided to do both, as IBM
> had a store of spendable money. They put in the P-bit. Set one way, it
> ran in EBCDIC. Set the other way, it ran in ASCII.
>
> But nobody told the programmers, like a Chinese Army in numbers! They
> spent this huge amount of money to make software in which EBCDIC
> encodings were used in the logic. Reverse the P-bit, to work in ASCII,
> and it died. And they just could not spend that much money again to redo
> it.
>
> .... snip ... and (one of the Consequences):
>
> Although some IBM customers would stay with all upper case for a while,
> the introduction of lower case would destroy all collating precedent,
> and IBM knew that, too. Especially from the STRETCH design in 1958,
> where I made a big mistake in setting the collating sequence as
> "A-a-B-b-C ..." [2]. Ordering alphabetically in dual case must be a
> two-step process -- first on the letter itself, and then on the quality
> of the letter (its case).
>
> ... snip ...
>
> more ASCII
> http://www.bobbemer.com/ASCII.HTM
>
> for other trivia ... recent posts mentioning Learson corporate directive
> memorandum (on bureaucracy)
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#11
> and, I suggested declaring Jan18 "T. Vincent Learson fight bureaucracy &
> don't kill the individual" day ... also "Watson don't tame the wild
> duck" day
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#11
>
> other posts in this thread:
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#43 Article for the boss: COBOL will
> outlive us all
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#45 Article for the boss: COBOL will
> outlive us all
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#51 Article for the boss: COBOL will
> outlive us all
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#52 Article for the boss: COBOL will
> outlive us all
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#55 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article
> for the boss
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#56 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article
> for the boss
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#57 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article
> for the boss
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#58 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article
> for the boss
> http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#59 Dualcase vs monocase. Was: Article
> for the boss
>
> --
> virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
>
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-- 
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA

t.

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