Decimal instructions were affected. Character sets didn't really affect other instructions.
On Mon, Feb 10, 2020 at 4:17 PM Tom Brennan <[email protected]> wrote: > > I heard about that bit in college. Do you know what it was supposed to > do internally? > > On 2/10/2020 1:50 PM, Pew, Curtis G wrote: > > On Feb 10, 2020, at 3:01 PM, Mike Schwab <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > >> ASCII wasn't finalized when the S/360 was announced. And it needed to > >> use existing 7 bit peripherals, tapes, etc. > >> > > > > But System/360 was supposed to be an ASCII machine, or at least to > > transition to ASCII long term. There was a bit in the PSW to determine if > > ASCII was in use or not. The IBM engineers, programmers, lower-level > > managers, and *customers* didn’t understand the importance of it, though, > > so it never happened. In System/360 the ASCII bit was repurposed to switch > > between EC mode (needed for DAT) and BC mode. > > > > Today those of us who use z/OS, etc. are paying the price for that lack of > > vision. > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN -- Mike A Schwab, Springfield IL USA Where do Forest Rangers go to get away from it all? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
