OK, I got curious and looked it up. ASCII signs were A and B.

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/360/princOps/A22-6821-0_360PrincOps.pdf
 

Too wonderful for words!168 pages for the whole book, including a description 
of how the front panel worked. The first sentence mentions that it is a "solid 
state" system.

It's an image scan and not searchable so I can't readily confirm my 
recollections of "ASCII mode" but I do think what I said is correct.

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of Charles Mills
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2016 9:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: ASCII vs. EBCDIC (was Re: On sort options ...)

Going just from memory here -- too lazy or too inconsequential to look it up.

1. Yes, the bit has gone away.
2. It never did much. After all, CLC or MVC does not care if the data is ASCII, 
EBCDIC or Klingon. All it ever did was control the sign nibble in packed 
results: C and D for EBCDIC, some other sign configurations for ASCII.

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