Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics From: Eric Fischer Subject: Multics ASCII "flag day" X-Nntp-Posting-Host: harper.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Originator: enf1@midway.uchicago.edu (ergot nectarine flange) Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) Organization: geeks against geeking X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 16:00:05 GMT Lines: 9 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!logbridge.uoregon.edu!uwm.edu!uwvax!uchinews!not-for-mail According to the multicians.org and Jargon File entries for "flag day," Multics switched versions of ASCII on June 14, 1966. Does anyone know why that day was chosen, or which version of ASCII was in use on Multics prior to the change? It seems like a strange time to choose to change, when the ASCII ordering that we now use had only been proposed three and a half weeks earlier, and would not be blessed by USASI (ANSI's predecessor) for several more months. eric ###### Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 14:17:04 -0700 From: thvv@multicians.org (Tom Van Vleck) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics Subject: Re: Multics ASCII "flag day" Message-ID: References: Organization: Multicians X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.4.1 Lines: 26 NNTP-Posting-Host: thvv.vip.best.com X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 936652681 214 206.86.18.21 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news2.best.com!news1.best.com!news3.best.com!nntp1.ba.best.com!not-for-mail Eric Fischer wrote: > According to the multicians.org and Jargon File entries for "flag > day," Multics switched versions of ASCII on June 14, 1966. Does > anyone know why that day was chosen, or which version of ASCII was > in use on Multics prior to the change? It seems like a strange > time to choose to change, when the ASCII ordering that we now use > had only been proposed three and a half weeks earlier, and would not > be blessed by USASI (ANSI's predecessor) for several more months. The Flag Day change was planned for months, and was not coordinated with the actions of committees. As I remember, we changed to "Proposed Revised 1966 ASCII," from what I am not sure. The change was the swap of the @ and ` characters. This was the last change to Multics ASCII, so I think we changed to today's version.. I think we had contact with one or more committee members and correctly anticipated the final version. Why was that day chosen? Just worked out that way. We had to have a single date because of the incompatibility of the change, and that's the day that schedules acame out to. I think Don Widrig and Karolyn Martin were involved in the planning. Jerry Saltzer would remember better than I do, since he was quite expert about the various character sets and printing mechanisms at the time, as a result of his work on RUNOFF. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics From: Eric Fischer Subject: Re: Multics ASCII "flag day" X-Nntp-Posting-Host: harper.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Originator: enf1@midway.uchicago.edu (ergot nectarine flange) Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) Organization: geeks against geeking X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) References: Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 22:17:26 GMT Lines: 13 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!logbridge.uoregon.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail Tom Van Vleck wrote: > The Flag Day change was planned for months, and was not coordinated > with the actions of committees. As I remember, we changed to > "Proposed Revised 1966 ASCII," from what I am not sure. > The change was the swap of the @ and ` characters. Thanks for the information about what happened on Flag Day. If the only characters that changed were @ and ` trading places, I think that would mean that Multics had previously been using the code from the ISO's fourth draft proposal, dated February, 1965. eric ###### Sender: marc@dumbcat.snafu.org Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics Subject: Re: Multics ASCII "flag day" References: <37d53c5d.72278342@news.prosurfr.com> From: Marco S Hyman Date: 07 Sep 1999 12:34:28 -0700 Message-ID: Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 34 NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.54.48.242 X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 936732872 217 marc@206.54.48.242 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.axxsys.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news2.best.com!news1.best.com!news3.best.com!nntp1.ba.best.com!not-for-mail jsavard@tenMAPSONeerf.edmonton.ab.ca (John Savard) writes: > That was a draft version of the new ASCII spec: originally, ASCII > didn't have lowercase characters in it, and the three characters > before DEL were all control characters - one of them was ESC, which > got changed to a regular control character, among the last 8 control > characters (which were originally S0 through S7). USASCII X3.4-1963 Code 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 NULL DC0 0 @ P #1 #1 1 SOM DC1 ! 1 A Q #1 #1 2 EOA DC2 " 2 B R #1 #1 3 EOM DC3 # 3 C S #1 #1 4 EOT DC4 $ 4 D T #1 #1 5 WRU ERR % 5 E U #1 #1 6 RU SYNC & 6 F V #1 #1 7 BELL LEM ' 7 G W #1 #1 8 FE S0 ( 8 H X #1 #1 9 HT/SK S1 ) 9 I Y #1 #1 10 LF S2 * : J Z #1 #1 11 VT S3 + ; K [ #1 #1 12 FF S4 , < L \ #1 ACK 13 CR S5 - = M ] #1 #2 14 SO S6 . > N #3 #1 ESC 15 SI S7 / ? O #4 #1 DEL #1 = unassigned #2 = unassigned control #3 = up arrow #4 = left arrow // marc ###### From: jsavard@tenMAPSONeerf.edmonton.ab.ca (John Savard) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics Subject: Re: Multics ASCII "flag day" Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 16:26:48 GMT Organization: PowerSurfr - High Speed Internet Lines: 28 Message-ID: <37d53c5d.72278342@news.prosurfr.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: c9169-003.v-wave.com X-Trace: dagger.videotron.ab.ca 936721526 13191 24.108.21.103 (7 Sep 1999 16:25:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@powersurfr.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 7 Sep 1999 16:25:26 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.telusplanet.net!news.tac.net!news.videotron.ab.ca!not-for-mail thvv@multicians.org (Tom Van Vleck) wrote, in part: >Eric Fischer wrote: >> According to the multicians.org and Jargon File entries for "flag >> day," Multics switched versions of ASCII on June 14, 1966. Does >> anyone know why that day was chosen, or which version of ASCII was >> in use on Multics prior to the change? It seems like a strange >> time to choose to change, when the ASCII ordering that we now use >> had only been proposed three and a half weeks earlier, and would not >> be blessed by USASI (ANSI's predecessor) for several more months. >The Flag Day change was planned for months, and was not coordinated >with the actions of committees. As I remember, we changed to >"Proposed Revised 1966 ASCII," from what I am not sure. >The change was the swap of the @ and ` characters. The version with them the wrong way around appeared in the September 1966 issue of Scientific American, which had a lot of articles about computers. That was a draft version of the new ASCII spec: originally, ASCII didn't have lowercase characters in it, and the three characters before DEL were all control characters - one of them was ESC, which got changed to a regular control character, among the last 8 control characters (which were originally S0 through S7). John Savard ( teneerf<- ) http://www.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto.htm ###### Sender: marc@dumbcat.snafu.org Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics Subject: Re: Multics ASCII "flag day" References: From: Marco S Hyman Date: 14 Sep 1999 20:36:49 -0700 Message-ID: Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 29 NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.54.48.242 X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 937366613 215 marc@206.54.48.242 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!skynet.be!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news2.best.com!news3.best.com!nntp1.ba.best.com!not-for-mail kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes: > Also, can anyone point me to definitions of what all the ASCII control > characters were supposed to mean? Some of them (like SUB and US) have > no meaning that is apparent to me from the expansions of their > mnemonics. See CCITT V.3 and ISO-646. My copy of ISO-646-1973 (E) says: ... Information separators IS1 (US) A control character used to separate and qualify data logically; its specific meaning has to be defined for each application. If this character is used in hierarchical order as specified in the general definition of IS, it delimits a data item called a UNIT. ... SUB Substitute character A control character used in place of a character that has been found to be invalid or in error. SUB is intended to be introduced by automatic means. // marc ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics Subject: Re: Multics ASCII "flag day" References: Organization: None X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) From: kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) Lines: 22 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.238.206.3 X-Trace: typ11.nn.bcandid.com 937362717 207.238.206.3 (Tue, 14 Sep 1999 22:31:57 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 22:31:57 EDT Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 02:31:57 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!gw12.nn.bcandid.com!gate.bCandid.com!typ11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail In article , Tom Van Vleck wrote: >Eric Fischer wrote: >with the actions of committees. As I remember, we changed to >"Proposed Revised 1966 ASCII," from what I am not sure. >The change was the swap of the @ and ` characters. Why was this change made? I can't see any obvious reason why one arrangement would be better than the other, but it seems to me that changing the arrangement is obviously detrimental to everyone. Also, can anyone point me to definitions of what all the ASCII control characters were supposed to mean? Some of them (like SUB and US) have no meaning that is apparent to me from the expansions of their mnemonics. Kragen (a Unicode fan) -- Kragen Sitaker Tue Sep 14 1999 55 days until the Internet stock bubble bursts on Monday, 1999-11-08. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.os.multics From: Eric Fischer Subject: Re: Multics ASCII "flag day" X-Nntp-Posting-Host: harper.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Originator: enf1@midway.uchicago.edu (ergot nectarine flange) Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) Organization: geeks against geeking X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) References: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 03:40:34 GMT Lines: 52 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed.cwix.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail Kragen Sitaker wrote: > Tom Van Vleck wrote: > > > ... As I remember, we changed to "Proposed Revised 1966 ASCII," from > > what I am not sure. The change was the swap of the @ and ` characters. > > Why was this change made? I can't see any obvious reason why one > arrangement would be better than the other, There is a story (see, for instance, Charles Mackenzie's book on character set history) that @ was relocated into position 6/0 (just before lowercase "a") because in France the symbol would have the graphic of an "a" with a grave accent, and therefore should be grouped with the lowercase letters rather than uppercase. The archival evidence doesn't seem to support that theory, though. It's a long story, but here's as short as I can make it: ASCII-1963 had uppercase only, and the first draft of the corresponding ISO standard copied this. The second draft, circa October, 1963, added lowercase, and put the underline just before lowercase "a". In March, 1964, the English and Germans both asked that the underline be moved to position 4/0, before uppercase "A." The English rationale was "having in mind assistance to certain countries who may have difficulties with certain extended letters," whatever that means, and the German one was that "it will then be nearer to the other special symbols." Neither country seemed to care a whole lot where @ ended up, so the simplest thing was to swap _ and @. Underline got moved again in October, 1964, when the Russian delegates to the CCITT said that they needed all 31 possible characters to use for letters but would really like to have underlining too, so underline was moved to its current position (uppercase DEL), and the grave accent, which had been in that position, was moved to where _ had been, just before uppercase A. The standards proposal for ASCII-1965 went out that way, but as it turned out the CCITT and ISO still had disagreements and the new ASCII standard didn't match. ASCII-1965 was suppressed as well as it could be after being published in CACM; the three groups held a conference to work out their differences, one result of which was the restoration of @ to its former position before uppercase "A." This was ASCII-1967, and more or less ASCII as we know it today. > it seems to me that changing the arrangement is obviously detrimental > to everyone. No doubt about that. Better compatibility with ASCII-1963 was a major selling point for ASCII-1967 compared to ASCII-1965. eric