Return-Path: <@um.cc.umich.edu:Bruce_Jolliffe@mtsg.ubc.ca>
Received: from umix.cc.umich.edu by CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU with TCP; Wed 23 Mar 88 15:04:53-EST
Received: by umix.cc.umich.edu (5.54/umix-2.0)
        id AA20587; Wed, 23 Mar 88 15:08:57 EST
Received: from MTSG.UBC.CA by um.cc.umich.edu via MTS-Net; Wed, 23 Mar 88 14:54:46 EST
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 88 11:53:14 PST
From: Bruce_Jolliffe@mtsg.ubc.ca
To: IBM-Kermit@cu20b.Columbia.edu, info-kermit@cu20b.Columbia.edu,
        iso8859%jhuvm@umix.cc.umich.edu, ibm7171%dearn@umix.cc.umich.edu
Message-Id: <972890@mtsg.ubc.ca>
Subject: ISO (ASCII) to EBCDIC Standards

 
As one of several MTS sites that have recently adopted an ISO 8859 -
Code Page 37 translation table I found your note on the adoption
standard ASCII-EBCDIC tables interesting.  We mapped each ISO graphic
to its corresponding EBCDIC graphic.  Thus we mapped the EBCDIC
logical not (5F) into the ISO logical not (AC).  Similarily we mapped
the ISO circumflex into the EBCDIC circumflex (B0) and the ISO tilde
(7F) into the EBCDIC tilde (A1).
 
As you might guess the two thorniest issues over the IBM Code Page 37
was the square brackets and the logical not.  As previously noted, in
another message, the square brackets in Code Page 37 are moved from
their traditional TN positions of AD and BD to BA and BB respectively.
The second issue concerned the logical not.  At most of the MTS sites
we had traditionally mapped EBCDIC logical nots into tildes.  After
much debate we decided it made no sense to do cross graphics mapping
and decided to go with a graphic to graphic mapping.
 
Many of the MTS sites provide general access to their IBM mainframes
exclusively through ASCII terminals. Thus many applications that
used the logical not as an input character had to be changed to accept
the EBCDIC tilde (we had previously mapped EBCDIC logical nots to
ASCII tildes).
 
Prior to the conversion there was a lot apprehension about changing to
the newer standard and we prepared for the worse. Now the conversion
has been done, and we can look back the conversion was more of a nuisance
rather than a major hassle. Granted it was not free, but with a
reasonable amount of preparation and saturation publicity the conversion
can be relatively painless.
 
The installations that have made this change include the University
of Michigan, Renssellaer Polytechnic Institute, University of
British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Newcastle,
Durham University, and Wayne State University. The University of
Alberta, the other remaining major MTS site, is due to convert this
summer.
 
 
                Bruce Jolliffe
                Computing Centre
                University of British Columbia
 
                Bruce_Jolliffe@mtsg.ubc.ca
          or
                USERBDJ@UBCMTSG.BITNET