UTS (which you already cite) was ASCII and worked (very!) well with 3270.
But it spoke EBCDIC to the tubes.
I have vague memory of 3174 CU (we had one of the first) having ASCII
capability.
Dunno if ASCII also required features in the tubes or if 3174 did magic
to "just make it work".
On 6/19/26 9:09 AM, Jay Maynard wrote:
It would require talking with an ASCII-native host, and I doubt any of them
ever implemented a 3270 driver. AFAIK, there certainly were no ASCII-native
OSes for the 360/370 (plus or minus UTS or AIX/370, which ran under VM
anyway).
On Fri, Jun 19, 2026 at 7:40 AM Phil Smith III <[email protected]> wrote:
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
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