🚀 go-pugleaf

In message <592eag$lr7@reader.seed.net.tw> at 16 Dec 1996 03:05:52 GMT,
   Dan Strychalski <dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw> wrote:
>
>  ...the early history of ASCII...
>  
>    ...in 1960. At the international level, ISO initiated plans to
>    set up TC 97. In the U.S., BEMA, recognized by the ASA as the sponsor
>    for standardization work in data processing, brought together a number
>    of companies to form a data processing group; in 1961 this group set
>    up the committee known as X3.
>
>    ...
>
>    X3, organized by BEMA in accordance with ASA guidelines, included
>    representatives of producer, consumer, and "general interest" groups
>    in approximately equal proportions. Commercial providers and users of
>    data processing goods and services made up almost two thirds of X3's
>    membership....
>  
>    Only one pair of subdivisions had both the same area of responsibility
>    and the same apparent rank in both hierarchies: TC 97 Working Group B,
>    Character Sets and Coding, and Standards Subcommittee X3.2, Coded
>    Character Sets.

At least as of today, I think this is actually known as X3L2. Have a look at:

    http://www.x3.org/tc_home/x3l2.htm

The bureaucracy of international standardization is formidable!
A description from one vendor's point of view may be found at:

    http://www.unisys.com/TechnologySolutions/WhitePapers/07_s02b.html

>  ...
>  
> Other than that, basically all I know is that ASA approved six-bit ASCII
> in 1963, ECMA passed the seven-bit ECMA-6 standard in 1965, and USASI
> published a seven-bit version of ASCII in 1968.


I think some part of the development of ASCII should be credited to
the Teletype Corporation (Skokie, Illinois).  I can't say authoritatively
how much, however, you can read some discussion at:

    http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/teletype_news.txt


> It looks like ASA was bending over backward to please IBM, but was
> prepared to go only so far. 


IBM historically has played the standards "game" very well.


> And we all know that IBM didn't make an ASCII
> machine until 1981....
> So what was going on in ASA/USASI between 1963 and 1968?


Ah, there is one very important development in ASCII that I have not seen
mentioned in this discussion. 

In about 1965 or 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued an Executive
Order requiring that all computer systems purchased by the United States
federal government be capable of communicating in ASCII. 

(Years ago, in the appendix to a large book published by McGraw-Hill--
maybe it was "Encyclopedia of Data Processing"--I saw a facsimile of LBJ's
Executive Order mandating ASCII.)

I assume, but don't know for a certainty, that the Seven Dwarfs computer
manufacturers (see below) were the parties who instigated this.  The U.S.
government had become very dependent on the mainframe products of IBM, all
of which were EBCDIC-speaking. 

(Rumor says that IBM relocated its headquarters to Armonk, New York, as a
patriotic gesture, so that when Manhattan was leveled in the anticipated
nuclear war, IBM would still be intact to help the nation rebuild.)

But with ASCII mandated for federal government use, it was somewhat easier
for the Seven to win procurement competitions.  IBM had to submit bids
that mostly included kluge measures, such as the 7171 Protocol Converter,
to translate from ASCII to EBCDIC.  (I think that IBM did build some
special-purpose computers that used ASCII--before the famous model 5150!)

A book that might shed more light on this subject is

    "Coded Character Sets: History and Development" by C. E. MacKenzie.
    Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1980.

If you don't remember an IBM product number of "5150", you may recall the
machines themselves: they came from a division in Boca Raton.  :-)

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* The Seven Dwarfs were those intrepid enterprises that dared to
  challenge IBM in selling data-processing machinery: General Electric,
  RCA, Sperry Univac, Honeywell, Burroughs, Scientific Data Systems,
  and Control Data Corporation

  One recent book tells the story of the largest of the Seven:

    http://www.computer.org/cspress/catalog/bp07383.htm
or  http://www.davison.net/cgi-bin/vlink/0818673834

  Read the preface: 

    http://www.computer.org/cspress/catalog/bp07383/dwf-pre.htm

Actually, some of the Seven (maybe Honeywell?) did build some EBCDIC
computers themselves.

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A variety of video-terminal-related information may be found at:

    http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html

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 ...Richard S. Shuford  |"He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and
 ...shuford@cs.utk.edu  | he who gives gifts to the rich--both come to poverty.
 ...Info-Stratus contact| Proverbs 22:16  NIV