Recollections about the history of ASCII, the
American ("National") Standard Code for Information Interchange

 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2001-03-20

Since 1996, some additional Worldwide Web links have appeared, the
contents of which shed various light on the history of ASCII and other
textual communication codes:

    Bob Bemer's contribution
    http://www.bobbemer.com/ASCII.HTM

    Jim Price's ASCII Resources
    http://www.jimprice.com/jim-asc.htm

    Contrast ASCII with EBCDIC codes, shown on this page
    http://info-it.umsystem.edu/oracle/svslr/svslr.2.0076.html

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Date: 12 Dec 1996 00:29:00 +0200
From: kai@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,alt.folklore.computers,comp.terminals
Message-ID: <6Mi6X6kUcsB@khms.westfalen.de>
References: <58ijvq$jc9@reader.seed.net.tw> <32ADF837.261F@cs.purdue.edu>
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?

kuhn@cs.purdue.edu (Markus Kuhn)  wrote on 10.12.96 in 
<32ADF837.261F@cs.purdue.edu>:
>
> dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw wrote:
> > I have a German document that _seems_ to say seven-bit ASCII was adopted
> > in Europe in 1965, three years before the U.S.  Anybody who reads German
> > willing to take a look at it for me? There is just one paragraph that I'm
> > eager to get a full translation of.
>
> Just post the paragraph.
>
> I guess, it refers to ECMA-6, a standard that you can order for free
> (see www.ecma.ch and ftp.ecma.ch). The modern 1991 ECMA-6
> standard is of course aligned with the modern ISO 646 (the
> US-ASCII as we know it today), but the foreword talks about the
> early history if I remember correctly.


ECMA-6 adopted 30 Apr 65, revised Jun 67, Jul 70, Aug 73
3rd ed gave us ISO 646-1972 and CCITT V.3 "International Telegraph  
Alphabet No. 5"

ISO stuff revised 1983 and 1991.

All from that foreword of the 1991 issue of ECMA-6.


Kai
--
Internet: kai@khms.westfalen.de
Bang: major_backbone!khms.westfalen.de!kai
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/


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From: Kosta Kostis <kosta@live.robin.de>
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 10:49:25 +0100
Organization: RoBIN e. V.
Message-ID: <32AFD525.FC7@live.robin.de>
References: <58m7ao$npo@reader.seed.net.tw>

dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw wrote:
> P.S.  I'd like to post a translation, but I'm not qualified to judge
>       which of those I've received does the original the most justice.

You could send me those translations and I judge them (I wrote that
original German version).  ;)

>       All agree that ECMA-6 as an official standard dates from 1965,
>       and that the author of the passage is as curious as I am about
>       whether the U.S. had a seven-bit standard before that.

That's right. ECMA is one of those incredibly friendly organisations
who send you a copy of their standards if you ask them and they even
do so for free (at least they did when I asked some time ago).
My source was the foreword of ECMA-6.

Since I'm also curious about the matter, please keep us informed
about your findings.  :)

Best Regards

	Kosta
-- 
  kostis@acm.org, kosta@live.robin.de, kosta@blues.sub.de
  Kosta Kostis, Talstr. 25, D-63322 Rödermark, Germany
  http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/kosta/

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Date: 12 Dec 1996 08:00:38 GMT
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References: <58ijha$j3a@reader.seed.net.tw> <E27yn6.37s@cwi.nl>
Reply-To: dac2+@andrew.cmu.edu
Keywords: ASCII, character sets, text encoding methods
From: dacut@ugcs.caltech.edu (David A. Cuthbert)
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?


In article <E27yn6.37s@cwi.nl>, Dik T. Winter <dik@cwi.nl> wrote:
>The first version of 7-bit ASCII was earlier.  The 1968 version did not
>have the arrows, but had alternate options for !, $, ^, that could also
>be or-symbol, pound sterling and not symbol (and at that time | was a
>split vertical bar).                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Heh... interestingly enough, | *is* a split vertical bar on most PC's
out there.  At least, it appears that way on my screen (which is
running in VGA text mode, right now); of course, most Windows fonts
correct this, but I found it amusing, nonetheless.
--
David A. Cuthbert    Graduate Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering
dac2+@andrew.cmu.edu                            Carnegie Mellon University

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Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 14:17:51 -0500
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References: <58m7ao$npo@reader.seed.net.tw>
From: Markus Kuhn <kuhn@cs.purdue.edu>
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?


dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw wrote:
>======================================================================
> 2.1  Geschichte der Zeichenkodierungen
>======================================================================
> 
> Ich bin mir bewusst, dass diese Auflistung sowohl unvollstaendig als auch
> einigermassen willkuerlich ist - man moege mir das nachsehen.
> 
> Ende April 1965 wurde ECMA-6 verabschiedet. ECMA-6 ist die 7-bit
> Zeichenkodierung, die auch als US-ASCII oder auch als ISO 646 bzw.
> als DIN 66003 (Juni 1974) bekannt und weit verbreitet ist.
> (Eigentlich sollte man denken, dass der US-ASCII auch aus den USA
> stammt, jedoch ist mir keine US-amerikanische Quelle bekannt, die
> aelter als April 1965 ist - kann das sein?)
> 
> Mit der Zeit wurde den EDV-Treibenden das Umschreiben von Umlauten
> zu laestig  ;)  und sie entwarfen nationale Varianten von ISO 646.
> Das fuehrte dazu, dass man sich z. B. in Deutschland zwischen Umlauten
> und eckigen sowie geschweiften Klammern entscheiden musste oder mit
> Escape-Sequenzen arbeiten.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ok, here is my translation:

======
2.1 History of character codes

I am aware that this list is both incomplete and somewhat arbitrary -
please forgive me for this.

In the end of April 1965, ECMA-6 has been finalized. ECMA-6 is the 7-bit
character code, which is known and widely used as US-ASCII or as ISO 646
or DIN 66003 (June 1974), respectively. (One should think that US-ASCII
originated in the USA, however I am not aware of any U.S. source which
predates April 1965 - is this possible?)

[... the rest talks about the missing German Umlaut characters, etc.]
======

Kosta Kostis <kosta@live.robin.de>, the author of the "German Umlaut
Characters in the German parts of USENET FAQ", has a copy of ECMA-6 and
has got this info from the foreword there. I have already forwarded 
him Dik's posting with the 1964 reference to the article about the ISO
character set in The Computer Journal 7 (1964), Nr 3, 197-202, but it
still seems that ECMA-6 was the first formal standard describing ASCII
that has been published.

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Science grad student, Purdue
University, Indiana, US, email: kuhn@cs.purdue.edu

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From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: 11 Dec 1996 11:52:56 GMT
Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc.
Message-ID: <58m7ao$npo@reader.seed.net.tw>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.72.104.4
Summary: A passage in German suggesting Europe adopted "ASCII" before the US
Keywords: ASCII, standards, character encoding, text

I wrote --

> I have a German document that _seems_ to say seven-bit ASCII was adopted
> in Europe in 1965, three years before the U.S.  Anybody who reads German
> willing to take a look at it for me? There is just one paragraph that I'm
> eager to get a full translation of.

And Markus Kuhn (kuhn@cs.purdue.edu) responded --

> Just post the paragraph.

How can I refuse the keeper of the International Standards FAQ?
Especially when his name appears in the document I mentioned....

Yes, it refers to ECMA-6, and it's the only source I've seen that gives a
date -- April 1965 -- for the adoption of that standard (it's kinda hard
to get info on these kinds of things when you're in Taiwan). Several
people have already mailed me translations of the passage, and they all
agree: it says that ECMA-6 was approved, passed, promulgated, issued,
published, whatever, in April 1965. Six-bit ASCII came out in '63, but as
far as I can tell, ASA/ANSI (and whatever it called itself in between --
it briefly had another name) didn't approve a seven-bit character
encoding method until '68. Can anyone confirm or refute that?
 
Thanks for the tips about the ACM discussion and the foreword to the 1991
ECMA-6 standard, Markus. How can I eavesdrop on the ACM discussion?
 
Here's the passage containing the paragraph that intrigued me. That
paragraph is the second, the one that starts with "Ende April 1965." Many
thanks to those who offered to translate it, and especially to those who
have already sent me translations. I should work so fast....
 
Dan Strychalski                           Technical Writer and Translator
dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw             Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
===========================================================================
2.1  Geschichte der Zeichenkodierungen
===========================================================================

Ich bin mir bewusst, dass diese Auflistung sowohl unvollstaendig als auch
einigermassen willkuerlich ist - man moege mir das nachsehen.

Ende April 1965 wurde ECMA-6 verabschiedet. ECMA-6 ist die 7-bit
Zeichenkodierung, die auch als US-ASCII oder auch als ISO 646 bzw.
als DIN 66003 (Juni 1974) bekannt und weit verbreitet ist.
(Eigentlich sollte man denken, dass der US-ASCII auch aus den USA
stammt, jedoch ist mir keine US-amerikanische Quelle bekannt, die
aelter als April 1965 ist - kann das sein?)

Mit der Zeit wurde den EDV-Treibenden das Umschreiben von Umlauten
zu laestig  ;)  und sie entwarfen nationale Varianten von ISO 646.
Das fuehrte dazu, dass man sich z. B. in Deutschland zwischen Umlauten
und eckigen sowie geschweiften Klammern entscheiden musste oder mit
Escape-Sequenzen arbeiten.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
P.S.  I'd like to post a translation, but I'm not qualified to judge
      which of those I've received does the original the most justice.
      All agree that ECMA-6 as an official standard dates from 1965,
      and that the author of the passage is as curious as I am about
      whether the U.S. had a seven-bit standard before that.
 
Oh, almost forgot. The site and directory path of the document containing
the above passage (put 'em together and you'll have a URL):

http://sunsite.nijenrode.nl
/ftp/packages/rtfm/de.comp.standards/Umlaute_im_deutschsprachigen_Usenet_FAQ

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Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals
Date: 11 Dec 1996 01:23:10 GMT
Organization: Mathematics Department, University of Arizona
Message-ID: <RSM.96Dec10182310@platinum.math.arizona.edu>
References: <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>
	<58j2pu$3u4@tools.bbnplanet.com>
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From: rsm@math.arizona.edu (Robert S. Maier)
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?


>>>>> "Barry" == Barry Margolin <barmar@tools.bbnplanet.com> writes:

    Barry> In article <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>, Robert
    Barry> S. Maier <rsm@math.arizona.edu> wrote:
    >> I distinctly remember seeing, back in the early 1980's, an old
    >> character-cell terminal that represented the ^ character (caret,
    >> octal \136) by an up-arrow, and the _ character (underscore, \137)
    >> by a right-arrow.

    Barry> Actually, I believe the underscore was a LEFT arrow.  

I think Barry is right; my memory failed me.  The old early-1970's terminal
that I used back in 1984-5 probably had a LEFT arrow instead of an
underscore (for octal \137).  Not a right arrow.

Thanks to all the comments from other folks; they were illuminating.
I suppose we can date the terminal to before 1974, when the definitive
version of the ANSI X3.4 standard came out?  Come to think of it, the
arrowhead on the arrow was pretty faint, and the arrow itself was at or
below the baseline.  In retrospect it was almost as if the terminal
manufacturer was trying to compromise between two standards for graphic
rendition of \137.

I wish I could remember the manufacturer name, and model number.  I used
that terminal, which was in a terminal room, to log into several Unix
systems (including a VAX-11/780 and a Sun-2).  So I'm sure there was a
termcap entry for it.  The termcap entry may well be preserved, like a fly
in amber, in today's /etc/termcap.  I'm surprised no one remembers the
`underscore that was really a horizontal arrow displaced downward', though.

-- 
Robert S. Maier   | Internet: rsm@math.arizona.edu
Dept. of Math.    | 
Univ. of Arizona  | 
Tucson, AZ  85721 | FAX: +1 520 621 8322
U.S.A.            | Voice: +1 520 621 6893 (dept.), +1 520 621 2617 (office)


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From: Markus Kuhn <kuhn@cs.purdue.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 18:54:31 -0500
Organization: Purdue University
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dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw wrote:
> I have a German document that _seems_ to say seven-bit ASCII was adopted
> in Europe in 1965, three years before the U.S.  Anybody who reads German
> willing to take a look at it for me? There is just one paragraph that I'm
> eager to get a full translation of.

Just post the paragraph.

I guess, it refers to ECMA-6, a standard that you can order for free
(see www.ecma.ch and ftp.ecma.ch). The modern 1991 ECMA-6
standard is of course aligned with the modern ISO 646 (the
US-ASCII as we know it today), but the foreword talks about the
early history if I remember correctly.

There is also a lot of discussion in old Communications of the ACM
issues in the 1960s going on about ASCII.

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Science grad student, Purdue
University, Indiana, US, email: kuhn@cs.purdue.edu

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Keywords: ASCII, character sets, text encoding methods
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
References: <58ijha$j3a@reader.seed.net.tw>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:33:06 GMT
From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?


In article <58ijha$j3a@reader.seed.net.tw> dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw writes:
 > ISO and ANSI (then called ASA) recognized the need for data processing
 > standards in 1960 and began serious work on text encoding methods and
 > other issues in 1961-62. The first version of ASCII, which used six bits
 > and lacked lowercase letters and certain symbols, was approved in 1963.
 > Seven-bit ASCII, I think, was approved by ANSI in 1968 and was modified
 > very slightly in later revisions (in some cases at least, only function
 > or character names were changed).

The first version of 7-bit ASCII was earlier.  The 1968 version did not
have the arrows, but had alternate options for !, $, ^, that could also
be or-symbol, pound sterling and not symbol (and at that time | was a
split vertical bar).  See ANSI X3.4-1977 appendix D.2.
 > 
 > I have a German document that _seems_ to say seven-bit ASCII was adopted
 > in Europe in 1965, three years before the U.S.

What I have is ISO 646 which dates from 1973.  Further more, I have
references to the following:

    ISO 6 and 7 Bit Coded Character Sets for Information Processing
    Interchange, Draft ISO Recommandation No. 1052; June 1966

    H. McRoss, The ISO Charactrer Code, The Computer Journal 7 (1964),
    Nr 3, 197-202

    Proposed Revised Americaqn Standard Code for Information Interchange
    (ASCII), Comm. ACM 8(1965), Nr, 4, 207-214.

    DIN Norm 66 004, Informationsverarbeitung, Darstelliung des 7-Bit-Codes
    auf Datentraegern, Lochstreifen, Ausgabe Maerz 1967.
    (The draft was half a year earlier.)
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/


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From: barmar@tools.bbnplanet.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: 10 Dec 1996 02:17:18 -0500
Organization: BBN Planet, Cambridge, MA
Message-ID: <58j2pu$3u4@tools.bbnplanet.com>
References: <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>


In article <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>,
Robert S. Maier <rsm@math.arizona.edu> wrote:
>
>I distinctly remember seeing, back in the early 1980's, an old
>character-cell terminal that represented the ^ character (caret, octal
>\136) by an up-arrow, and the _ character (underscore, \137) by a
>right-arrow.

Actually, I believe the underscore was a LEFT arrow.  I remember that some
DEC operating systems echoed this character when you pressed the RUBOUT key
(which sent the ASCII DEL code) on the Teletype, and this made some sense
(consider that many keyboards now label the key that performs this function
with a left arrow).  But when these same OSes were used with later
terminals, the echoing of underscore seemed strange.

-- 
Barry Margolin
BBN Planet, Cambridge, MA
barmar@bbnplanet.com -  Phone (617) 873-3126 - Fax (617) 873-5508
(BBN customers, please call (800) 632-7638 option 1 for support)


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From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: 10 Dec 1996 03:04:26 GMT
Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc.
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <58ijvq$jc9@reader.seed.net.tw>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.72.104.4
Summary: ASCII dates from 1963, the current version from 1968
Keywords: ASCII, character sets, text encoding methods


Robert S. Maier (rsm@math.arizona.edu) wrote --

> What was the early history (1970's) of the ASCII encoding?  In particular,
> did it ever undergo a revision?

ISO and ANSI (then called ASA) recognized the need for data processing
standards in 1960 and began serious work on text encoding methods and
other issues in 1961-62. The first version of ASCII, which used six bits
and lacked lowercase letters and certain symbols, was approved in 1963.
Seven-bit ASCII, I think, was approved by ANSI in 1968 and was modified
very slightly in later revisions (there were several, but in some cases
at least, only function or character names were changed).

Material about the early history of ASCII can be found at the University
of Minnesota's Charles Babbage Institute. Last I checked, the URL was --
 
   http://www.cbi.umn.edu/welcome.htm
 
I have a German document that _seems_ to say seven-bit ASCII was adopted
in Europe in 1965, three years before the U.S.  Anybody who reads German
willing to take a look at it for me? There is just one paragraph that I'm
eager to get a full translation of.

Dan Strychalski   
dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw
(Reposted Tue Dec 10 11:01:50 CST after first attempt appeared to fail.)

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From: carlson@xylogics.com (James Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: 9 Dec 1996 08:12:46 -0500
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References: <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>
            <slrn5anjq0.2g9.sho@tannis.sho.net>


In article <slrn5anjq0.2g9.sho@tannis.sho.net>, 
    sho@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama) writes:
|>
|> In article <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>, Robert Maier wrote:
|> >What was the early history (1970's) of the ASCII encoding?  In particular,
|> >did it ever undergo a revision?
|> >
|> >I distinctly remember seeing, back in the early 1980's, an old
|> >character-cell terminal that represented the ^ character (caret, octal
|> >\136) by an up-arrow, and the _ character (underscore, \137) by a
|> >right-arrow.  The terminal must have dated back to the early 1970's.
|> >Someone told me that the terminal was interpreting \136 and \137 according
|> >to an early version of the ASCII standard, which was different from the one
|> >that was finally adopted.  Can anyone confirm this?  Unfortunately, I don't
|> >remember which company manufactured the terminal.


Yeah, I remember that on the old KSR-33's.  I don't recall any standards
for the graphic images produced by the character set, so I think that a
few manufacturers attempted to make these things friendly for use with
languages like APL.

You could call ANSI in New York and buy X3.4 ...

|> I'm not going to hit the books at this late time, but I think you're
|> refering to the conflict between ASCII and EBCDIC.
|> 
|> IBM terminals did EBCDIC and I guess everyone else did ASCII.
|> They were not compatible for many characters and control signals.


No, that can't be.  EBCDIC and ASCII aren't merely incompatible for
"many" characters.  They share *no* character codes in common.  You'd
get complete gibberish if you put EBCDIC into an ASCII device or vice-
versa.

-- 
James Carlson <carlson@xylogics.com>            Tel:  +1 617 272 8140
Annex Interface Development / Xylogics, Inc.          +1 800 225 3317
53 Third Avenue / Burlington MA  01803-4491     Fax:  +1 617 272 2618

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From: sho@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: 9 Dec 1996 19:32:49 GMT
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In article <58h38e$b1p@atlas.xylogics.com>, James Carlson wrote:
>
>In article <slrn5anjq0.2g9.sho@tannis.sho.net>, sho@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama) writes:
>|> In article <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>, Robert S. Maier
>|> wrote:
>|> 
>|> IBM terminals did EBCDIC and I guess everyone else did ASCII.
>|> They were not compatible for many characters and control signals.
>
>
> No, that can't be.  EBCDIC and ASCII aren't merely incompatible for
> "many" characters.  They share *no* character codes in common.  You'd
> get complete gibberish if you put EBCDIC into an ASCII device or vice-versa.


James, I stand completely corrected, after, well, looking it up, and
then seeing your post.

And you thought that no one read this group...


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Against the power of their misguidance we must learn to fight, to be 
just  who we want to be morning, noon and night
Night is for the hunters and the hunted are you and me, hunted for
just retaining some form of indentity" -Anne Clark
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Scientology is no urban legend, it's real and should be destroyed "
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GBH(tm)

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From: carlson@xylogics.com (James Carlson)
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?



In article <58hfvg$l57@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca>, shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa) writes:
[...]
|> Looking through my model 33 manuals, the ANSI Standard X3.41-1974 is
|> mentioned, though there is no indication of which type element follows
|> this specification most closely.

X3.41 is for the ANSI control codes (like CR, LF, FF).  X3.4 is the
ASCII code itself.

-- 
James Carlson <carlson@xylogics.com>            Tel:  +1 617 272 8140
Annex Interface Development / Xylogics, Inc.          +1 800 225 3317
53 Third Avenue / Burlington MA  01803-4491     Fax:  +1 617 272 2618

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From: shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Date: 9 Dec 1996 16:49:52 GMT
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In article <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>,
Robert S. Maier <rsm@math.arizona.edu> wrote:
>What was the early history (1970's) of the ASCII encoding?  In particular,
>did it ever undergo a revision?
>
>I distinctly remember seeing, back in the early 1980's, an old
>character-cell terminal that represented the ^ character (caret, octal
>\136) by an up-arrow, and the _ character (underscore, \137) by a
>right-arrow.  The terminal must have dated back to the early 1970's.
>Someone told me that the terminal was interpreting \136 and \137 according
>to an early version of the ASCII standard, which was different from the one
>that was finally adopted.  Can anyone confirm this?  Unfortunately, I don't
>remember which company manufactured the terminal.

The printing characters you mention are shared by my model 33 Teletypes.
(In addition, mine has a slash through the letter O "Oh" and no slashes
in the digit 0 "Zero".)  Literally dozens of different type elements
were available for the model 33 - the customer had the choice.

Looking through my model 33 manuals, the ANSI Standard X3.41-1974 is
mentioned, though there is no indication of which type element follows
this specification most closely.

Tim. (shoppa@triumf.ca)

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From: rsm@math.arizona.edu (Robert S. Maier)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals
Subject: Early history of ASCII?
Date: 09 Dec 1996 05:25:13 GMT
Organization: Mathematics Department, University of Arizona
Lines: 19
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <RSM.96Dec8222513@platinum.math.arizona.edu>


What was the early history (1970's) of the ASCII encoding?  In particular,
did it ever undergo a revision?

I distinctly remember seeing, back in the early 1980's, an old
character-cell terminal that represented the ^ character (caret, octal
\136) by an up-arrow, and the _ character (underscore, \137) by a
right-arrow.  The terminal must have dated back to the early 1970's.
Someone told me that the terminal was interpreting \136 and \137 according
to an early version of the ASCII standard, which was different from the one
that was finally adopted.  Can anyone confirm this?  Unfortunately, I don't
remember which company manufactured the terminal.

-- 
Robert S. Maier   | Internet: rsm@math.arizona.edu
Dept. of Math.    | 
Univ. of Arizona  | 
Tucson, AZ  85721 | FAX: +1 520 621 8322
U.S.A.            | Voice: +1 520 621 6893 (dept.), +1 520 621 2617 (office)

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Summary: The early history of ASCII looks murky.
Keywords: ASCII, computer history, character sets, encoding methods
From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?


Kosta Kostis (kosta@live.robin.de) wrote --
>
> dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw wrote:
> > P.S.  I'd like to post a translation, but I'm not qualified to judge
> >       which of those I've received does the original the most justice.
> 
> You could send me those translations and I judge them (I wrote that
> original German version).  ;)

Done!

Another big thank-you to the folks who sent me translations. They have
graciously given me permission to pass their renderings on, and who would
be a better recipient than the author himself? Thanks also to those who
offered but couldn't get around to it. I know how that is.

 
Following is a broad outline of what I've been able to find out (and
surmise) about the early history of ASCII (some of the abbreviations may
be unfamiliar; I'll explain them further on):
 
   Standards organizations began turning their attention to information
   technology 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.
 
   Immediately after starting operation, TC 97 set up six working groups,
   and X3 set up six subcommittees. Both sets of subdivisions included
   bodies for the standardization of data transmission methods,
   programming languages, computer-related terminology, character
   recognition techniques, and character encoding practices.
 
   As part of an international organization with three official
   languages, TC 97 needed first to define the terms in which standards
   would be described. At the top of the list of TC 97's subdivisions was
   Working Group A, Glossary.
 
   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. At the top of the list of X3's subdivisions was Standards
   Subcommittee X3.1, Character Recognition.
 
   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. 
 
It seems clear that both ISO and ASA attached great importance to the
standardization of character codes, and that big business had a big
influence on ASA's priorities....
 
X3's job was to develop U.S. standards, submit them to ISO, and develop
U.S. positions on proposals coming from ISO. The original X3 committee
was made up of representatives from --
 
   10 manufacturers, one of which was Honeywell Minneapolis.
   10 consumer groups, including the Air Transport Association and the
      American Bankers Association.
   11 general interest groups, including the Association for Computing
      Machinery, the Department of Defense, and the American Management
      Association.
 
Subcommittee X3.2 worked on coded character sets; the task group working
on ASCII appears to have been designated X3.2.4. Membership in X3.2 and
X3.2.4 was based on technical qualifications rather than affiliation with
any of the X3 member bodies.


       [later, anyway, the name of the subcommittee was/is "X3L2" ...RSS]

 
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. Now for those
abbreviations and some related history:
 
ISO      The International Organization for Standardization. Founded in
         1947; based in Geneva. ISO is made up of "member bodies," one
         per country. The name "ISO" is derived from the Greek "isos,"
         meaning "equal," and is pronounced EYE-so in English.
 
TC 97    ISO technical committee on computers and information processing.
         Now dissolved. Its work is carried on by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the
         Joint Technical Committee of ISO and the International
         Electrotechnical Commission.
 
ASA      The American Standards Association. Became the United States of
         America Standards Institute (USASI) in 1966 and the American
         National Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1969. U.S. member body of
         ISO; private and non-profit.
 
BEMA     Business Equipment Manufacturers Association (U.S.). Later
         became the Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers
         Association (CBEMA); known since 1994 as the Information
         Technology Industries Council (ITI).
 
X3       ASA sectional committee on computers and data processing. Later
         called American National Standards Committee X3 (ANSC-X3); now
         known as Accredited Standards Committee X3 (ASC X3). Accredited
         by ANSI and administered by ITI.
 
Also in the early sixties, IBM formulated a single, representative (I'd
rather avoid words like "standard" and "official") version of EBCDIC;
previously, each department or project had used a different version.
Whether IBM tried to get EBCDIC approved by ASA I have no idea. I do know
that most of the values in the control range (18 of the 32, if I recall
correctly) have identical definitions in ASCII and EBCDIC.
 
It looks like ASA was bending over backward to please IBM, but was
prepared to go only so far. 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?
 
Dan Strychalski
dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw


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From: "Richard S. Shuford" <shuford@cs.utk.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers,comp.sys.unisys,comp.sys.cdc,bit.listserv.ibm7171
Subject: Re: Early history of ASCII?
Followup-To: comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 11:34:58 -0500
Organization: Computer Science Dept, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
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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 [a year or two later actually],
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.)

    [it was the "Encyclopedia of Data Communications Standards"; see below]

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.  :-)

 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

* 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?) [and Burroughs] did build
some EBCDIC computers themselves.



   [The above book, mostly about General Electric, contains an error, which
    I unthinkingly propagated here.  SDS was NOT one of the Seven Dwarfs;
    instead substitute NCR (originally National Cash Register). 
    NCR was later swallowed up by AT&T, but AT&T has recently split it off
    again to form ATTGIS (AT&T Global Information Solutions).  ...RSS]


 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

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

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

 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

 ...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


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From dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw Thu Mar  5 10:40:54 1998
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 12:52:50 +0800 (CST)
From: Dan Strychalski <dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw>
To: shuford@cs.utk.edu
Subject: History of ASCII

> Recollections about the history of ASCII, the
> American ("National") Standard Code for Information Interchange

[at <http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/ascii_history.txt>]

Richard,

Kudos on that page. It seems incomplete, though, without the message
appended below.      -- Dan Strychalski <dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Subject:    Re: Early history of ASCII?
From:       Marco S Hyman <marc@dumbcat.codewright.com>
Date:       1996/12/20
Message-Id: <x73ex0y9qe.fsf@dumbcat.codewright.com>
Newsgroups: comp.terminals,alt.folklore.computers

shuford@cs.utk.edu said:

 > 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.

>From FIPS PUB 7, Dated March 7, 1969:

-------------
PURPOSE.--To provide further details concerning the implementation and
applicability of the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), Code
for Information Interchange (FIPS 1), Perforated Tape Code for Information
Interchange (FIPS 2), and Recorded Magnetic Tape for Information Interchange
(800 CPI, NRZI)(FIPS 3).

EXPLANATION.--White House memorandum to heads of departments and agencies,
dated March 11, 1968, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson approved as
Federal Standards the United States of America Standard Code for
Information Interchange and assiciated standards for recording the code
on perforated and magnetic tape media. ...

-------------

A copy of the memoranda is attached to this FIPS.  If anyone *has* to
have it I suppose I could type it in.

 > (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'm using "McGraw Hill's Compilation of DATA COMMUNICATIONS STANDARDS,
Edition II" dated 1982.  It's just under 2000 pages.

// marc

 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Message-ID: <15694.37588.543343.115033@g.g.H>
Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 10:59:32 -0400
From: James Carlson
Subject: Re: Vi question part II

Question from a user:
>
> Now he is asking the following 
> 
> He said that ^M is hex0d and ^H is hex08.

Yep.

> a) It is documented in where?

It's an ancient ASCII and UNIX convention.  Control characters are
designated with a leading "^" character.  Take the ASCII code for a
character in the range @ (hex 40) to _ (hex 5F), subtract hex 40, and
that's the code that you get when you type CTRL-<key> on the
keyboard.  (One special case: ^? is often used to represent hex 7F --
the ASCII delete character -- though you can't always type this as
CTRL-? on all keyboards.)

One place it's documented is with ECHOCTL in termio(7I).

>  b) How can you see the "True Hex value"
> in vi or if you cannot what tool will let you

$ od -x

> c) When looking at a file how can you discriminate between 
> a true caret "^" and letter "M" as opposed to a carriage return "^M".

Advance the cursor over it with the 'l' and 'h' keys.  If it's a true
caret, then you'll be able to put the cursor on each character.  If
it's a control character, then the cursor will hop over the caret.


 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/06/23/obit.bemer.ap/index.html

"Computer pioneer dies"

Thursday, June 24, 2004 Posted: 9:34 PM EDT (0134 GMT) 

POSSUM KINGDOM LAKE, Texas (AP)--Bob Bemer, a computer pioneer who
published warnings of the Y2K problem in the early 1970s and helped
invent a widely used coding system, has died after a battle with cancer.
He was 84.

Bemer died Tuesday at his home along Possum Kingdom Lake, about
120 miles west of Dallas, said his stepson, Glen Peeler.

Bemer played an major role in how the world's computers operate.
He helped invent the ASCII coding system that is used in computers
to represent text, and also contributed the escape key and the
backslash to the computer language.

Pronounced "As-kee," the American Standard Code for Information
Interchange is an encoding system used in nearly every computer.
It allows computers, which can only interpret numbers, to see
text as a series of numbers.

He first published warnings of the Y2K computer problem in 1971
and again in 1979, and made several media appearances to discuss
the issue in the years leading up to the millennium.

As recently as a month ago, "He was on the computer every day,"
Peeler said Wednesday. "He is a man who literally worked just
about every day until he died. He felt at home sitting in front
of a (computer) screen." 

Born Feb. 8, 1920, in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Bemer began
his programming career in 1949, working at companies including
RAND Corp., IBM, and Honeywell.

It was his time with IBM during the 1950s and 1960s where he
contributed to the development of ASCII.

On his Web site, he described himself as a "Computer software
consultant, futurist, and raconteur."

"He never got the coding out of his system," Peeler said.
"He was a coder until he couldn't code any more. He lived
it and breathed it."

A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday.

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