I am astounded. Did a ton of 3270 stuff back in the day and have ZERO memory of it ever mentioning ASCII!
Weirdly, it's all over that book--but it never seems to discuss what they mean about using it. There's ONE index entry, which points to an entry about structured fields, where it says simply: "Note: The use of structured fields requires that the full 8 bits of a byte be used; therefore, WSF is not supported in an ASCII environment." Makes me wonder if anybody ever used that support?! Thanks. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Seymour J Metz Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 11:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Two TSO terminal I/O from Rexx questions My point is that the 3270DS supported ASCII from day one. IBM 3270 Information Display System Data Stream Systems Programmer's Reference also mentions both encodings. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of Phil Smith III <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 10:50 PM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Two TSO terminal I/O from Rexx questions External Message: Use Caution Not sure what your point is. The displayable data in a 3270 data stream, as sent to a 3270 device, is not ASCII as far as I've ever seen. Of course a controller might rework it as an emulation thing, but I don't think any 3270s spoke ASCII, did they? On June 18, 2026 10:33:44 PM Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: > "Data, commands, and orders transmitted between the control unit and the > host system > are in the form of interface codes. Two different codes are used in the > United States: > extended binary-coded decimal interchange code (EBCDIC) and American National > Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). The EBCDIC codes are > also used > in the World Trade countries (ASCII is available only in the U.S.); refer > to IBM 3270 > Information Display System: Character Set Reference, GA27-2837, for details. " > > > -- > Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz > http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 > עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי > נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר > > > > > ________________________________________ > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of > Phil Smith III <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 10:03 PM > To: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Two TSO terminal I/O from Rexx questions > > > External Message: Use Caution > > > Ehhhhh...the 3270DS itself still isn't doing ASCII, I don't think. > > On June 18, 2026 9:36:18 PM Seymour J Metz <[email protected]> wrote: > >> That depends on the 3271 model. >> >> >> -- >> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz >> http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 >> עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי >> נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר >> >> >> >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> on behalf of >> Paul Gilmartin <[email protected]> >> Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2026 7:53 PM >> To: [email protected] <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: Two TSO terminal I/O from Rexx questions >> >> >> External Message: Use Caution >> >> >> On Thu, 18 Jun 2026 22:30:08 +0000, Seymour J Metz wrote: >> >>> My TSMBIRD was ASCII art on a 3277; is your ILRBIRD fancier? >>> >> ASCII ? 3277? >> It's easier to believe EBCDIC character cell. >> Or do 3277 data streams support ASCII? >> >> -- >> gil >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN >> >> >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
