And the former has the PIC in plain view in. Cheers, Martin
Martin Packer, zChampion, Principal Systems Investigator, Worldwide Banking Center of Excellence, IBM +44-7802-245-584 email: martin_pac...@uk.ibm.com Twitter / Facebook IDs: MartinPacker Blog: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/MartinPacker From: John Gilmore <jwgli...@gmail.com> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Date: 07/11/2014 11:14 Subject: Re: System vs. user ABEND codes Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> At most four decimal digits are required to represent any 12-digit binary value, and at most three hexadecimal digits are required to represent one. Anciently, a useful display distinction betrween Sxxx, system, and Udddd, user, ABEND codes was usual and convenient. It had about it an element of the arbitrary, but that did not lessen its usefulness, and familiarity made alternatives all but unthinkable. Unlike people of later generations, who had hexadecimal calculators available to them ab initio, I can do mental hexadecimal arithmetic and decimal<==>hexadecimal conversions quickly because I had to be able to do so. Even so, I find an S0c4 perspicuous and an S0196 opaque. I can of course convert one into the other once it occurs to me to do so, but that is not the point. The difference in length also has the obvious merit that it disambiguates code type in the absence of one of the prefixes S | U, which are/were redundant and would until recently have been perceived as [not wrong certainly but] unidiomatic. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN Unless stated otherwise above: IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 741598. Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3AU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
