By Ft. W. Bemer

The data alphabet called ASCII [Figure 1. page '38. and STICKS «ll-T ; Reference 111, also has two other names—International ASCII. as a then code. is usually represented in 3 col- Standard 1545 {the 150 Code [Reference 2]} and Alphabet um ns of 16 positions. The row positions are (flit) through No. 5 ol CCI'I'T {the International Consultative Committee 1111. the tow-order 4 hits. C through 15 in decimal. The for Telephone and Telegraph}. It is used throughout the columns are CUE! through 111, the next higher 3 hits. Ci world. incorporated in billions ofdollars of equipment. through ? in decimal. For some reason, the developers But is it used correctly and wisely“? Not alwavs. There of ASCII found it convenient to refer to these eight col- are misinterpretations. and gaps in definition that per- urnns as ”sticks.” So shall we. Each position will he rep- mit nonstandard usage. This article (in three parts] will resented in this article lav its usual decimal represents- give you the background, peculiarities. preferred prac' tion. For example. capital A is position 4“. Figure 2 is a tices. and. new developments. for ASCII. You will find a representation of ASCII that is more convenient to those lot of information not too generally known or realized; it working in octal. rather than hexadecimal, notation.

should help in the correct and safe usage of ASCII. For additional help. vou can reference the various national and international standards given in Table 1. Some other detailed articles are listed in References 3, A and S. HlflH DFIDER LE'I'II' CIHDE H BET-At. “h CHSTAL DIGETS EMGIT

1H “'5‘ I'll Fl” {1| I1. I1 “HIT it'll 9.1” HuL'oLE st- ' '1] than-Tma In“ I. IJJ-I‘IFF 'I :Eil1i “*3: "TI- LI tum TIN-4‘1! sot-loot t ‘ Eta-ruff? 5-1"! III-.W

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LEEEWII it. [SE - Internattonal Stendirds Greenfzatfofi L ECFA - European computer Manufacturers Assoctation ANSI - Airricln Rational Standards Institute H FIFE - Federal Interaction Processlog Standard EBA - Elnadtlfl Standards Associatice H 55 - Brittsh Standard D A5 - Australian Standard CEITT — Eonsultlttve Eennfttee loternattenet, Telcencne E Teardfedh l H5 - Jaaanese IfiGJstrfaL Standard Figure 2. ‘ BUST - USSR Standard Table 1.

95 INTERFACE AGE MA? WES

The first positions of sticks it and E are respectively Also in sticks 4-? are three diacritical marl-ts. They are the “commercial at" and “accent grave.” Then the upper accent grave t“! in Etfl. circumflex It} in SIM. and tilde tau} and lower case Ftoman alphabets follow. This ottset of ene in ms. These are called secondary national usage posi- position is historical them the United Kingdom}. and ot tions. In some countries the tilde is a straight overline. no importance as long as you remember that it is so. But it is the circumflex where we have a lot of confu- Foitowihg the alphabet in both sticks 5 and T are three sion. Teletype first made it an “up arrow“ in an earlier positions each that one must be very cautious about. In version of ASCII. to serve as an exponentiation symbol. ASCII they are assigned as [. I". and ] in stick 5 — i. l". primarily for BASIC. But that doesn’t do very well. be- and I in stick T. Eiut in the ISO Code and CCIT’T versions cause the exponentiation for FflFtTHAN is a double they are reserved for national usage. Table It gives the asterisk! The FDRTHAH version is preferable in France. national use assignment tor these positions. Surely you certainly. because they use such words as crane. cote. remember that the Scandinavian alphabet has 29 letters. cout. and so on. not 26'? My friend Grier Heen in field is very protective of A companion problem exists in position bits. with the these positlons. He says ”If you Americans want to sell underscore. The underscore is neither national nor dia- computers and software abrcad. don't use the ASCII critical; all countries use it just as underscore {and for characters for these positions in your software.” typesetting it is a US. convention to indicate italics. but To be more precise. position-s E11. E12. 5i13. Till. in Italy it means beldface. except when it is the last THE. and 1113 {noted above] are called primary national character in a line!"l. But Teletype's early version of usage positions. Se is 4.13. where ASCII has the “com- ASCII used it as a ”left arrow” — probably for an assign- mercial at.” Honeywell. for example. uses the “at” in its ment symbol equivalent to := in ALGDL. The up and left timesharlng systems for deleting the previous character arrow have been carried over from Teletype into many upon entry. But this isn't too serious. because many na- video terminals. Ask your terminal manufacturer to cease tions also have the “at” in their primary sets. and desist and retrofit. It's not ASCII and will only cause trouble forever.

currency tat T nah-mil 7 du- die [fl 3" rial-twat till The last character in sticks 4-? is the Delete. symbol at: an: axe 5H] site sets emf etc MT Hz F'r'lJ

DEL. in position THT. It was put here because the binary Metrerlmtli-J - I ' . | "1 f I code is 1111111. which would be all punched holes in Australia I ‘ t . Hull mm all ‘ perforated {not always paper!) tape. and that is the only t'I" 4r'mafiy— A t. US way to make sure that it cannot be misread as some

Japan *— other character- ASCII is a complete set; all positions Uh it C lllly -; I. I are assigned to have meaning. fimttlr lend ml- Fun“ ~ ill. :- HE‘SP i...__. 2311ch 2-3 .

Heme r term — E These are usually called the sticks for digits and spe-

Helium —H _._._.__ I when — B 1 It. cials. Remember that they are the “digits" El 1:! 9: not Emu-Ithaca EH numbers. not numerals. not anything but digits! They llfly— E l t IIII‘II'I Eva-fireman —»t: are in am through SIB so that the Iowverder it bits are the Hungary l fr representations for packed decimal. Griginally we con- it: Germany — B i“ t- It: Fm

Svr-tnrllnd =-D r-gau—A- sidered the possibility of a special it+bit set for numeri- hug-.- Semen I ' I £‘—L-.-- entry in Table Ia}. but it Ftfiufid H cal applications [see the fifth a. Denmark h out that computer hardware became inexpensive

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of the Tabit and 3-bit sets. Table 2.

H111“ TQM i‘NTEfiFACE AGE 9?

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93 FM TEHFAGE AGE HAY 19H

Position as is officially called "space.“ I don't and HANDPHIHTIHG FDR STICKS 2-? didn't like it. and would have prelerred ”blank.” Which is The classical contusion for many years was “between why the IBM community often uses a lower case "bee” the digit zero and the letter “oh.” but there are other with a slash through the vertical as its symbol. From the possibilities for contusion. American Standard 323.45 Univac side. the space has the official symbol “delta." specifies the handwritten character shapes shown in Having mentioned packed decimal. where two digits Figure 3. go into each 8-bit group (”byte” to the American. “octet" to the French}. a word of caution on the plus and minus signs — they are in stick 2. rather than stick 3 with the digits. But the low order 4 bits are distinct. and + should be used only as tbtt. — only as 1101. I mention this because the nonstandard code EBCD’IC permits multiple representations of + and — in packed decimal. And the ASCII representations are not even coincident NB CDEEEHII with any of these. with obvious dangers! Watch out for the “currency" positions, 33 and a4. They also have national variations. ln ASCII they are we tomarily it and S. but there are some things to be remem- bored: III is not “number sign” for many countries. most of which use ”lilo." or ”Mr." for that purpose. And when it is “number." it must precede the digits. not follow. til ctosely resembled the “sharp sign" in music. *II is “pound sign" only for the US... the only major coun: try still not using the metric system. To the rest. it's kilograms. For now. it‘s best to use the abbreviation “lo." in the LI.S.. not the it. In any case. both must follow the numeral. rm the British, a “pound“ has the symbol ““.£ which is why that is the symbol in position $3 for the LII-t. They get very irked when It is called a "pound“ sign. espe- cially in software manuals. IIThe "dollar“ is peculiar to the LIE... Canada. and some others. There are also francs. marks. escudos. pesos. lire. etc.. etc. Which is why the ISD code uses the uni- versal currency symbol in position 214. It's a circle with outside spikes at 45. 135. 225. and 315 degrees [01. called “scarab.” Table II atso shows these assignments Ior several countries. 'ECMA has provided a separate guideline for specifying international currencies. See the “Where to Get More Information" at the end of this article. It's a tough problem. and will get worse when we get in- to expanded character sets for photocomposition and such. For now. all we can do is follow the ASCII stan dard. which says that it is a “number sign." lIllinly a law more peculiarities remain for sticks 2-3.. An important one is in the double quote. position 212. and the single quote. position 2H. That is. you may think it is a single quote. and even use it so. but it is really an "no cent acute” tor vowels. it slants from top right to bottom

» Mates?“ II left. to complement "accent grave” in Bill. which siants lrom top left to bottom right. Some terminal makers do not realize this pairing. and will have accent grave slant- Figure 3. ing correctly. but put accent acute as a single quote in This clears up a iongstanding problem. The communi- the unstylizad up and down method. My Terminet is one cations types. and the armed services. used to put a of those that is OK. slash through the zero; somehow the lEilvl users got to Don't forget that to the typesetter. in contrast to type- putting the slash through the letter ”oh" instead. con- writers. both single and double quotes have two forms iusing the Scandinavians greatly. Now it‘s neither {which -— opening and closing. in tact. the lypeselter gets his helps}. just a ‘lM-degree rotation of the letter Q. The senior double quotes by using two single quotes. at either Gannon Standard [llhl 66 002 prescribed the cursive loop form. because the quote uses very little space in vari- in the upper right. as some may have learned in penman- able space typesetting. lvl-ost terminals. either video or ship courses. lt now permits the ANSI term as well. hardcopy. use constant spacing. So double and single quotes must be distinct. for that reason. UPPER AND LDIHEH CASE LETTERS The last variation is in position as. the ampersand. litany people are accustomed to using upper case only. There are many legitimate dillerent symbols tor the ‘i’his is a hangover from early line printers and limited ampersand. Neither ASCII nor the ISO Code prescribe sets [until the Stretch computer of IEIvI. characters were any particular one. But this leads us to the neat topic — usually 6 bits in size}. it would have bean far better if how to represent the ASGII characters in handprinted they had all been lower case in these smaller sets. Putv term. so that they may be input to computer systems. ting it simply. would you buy a book to read it it were all HA?" 1935 INTERFACE AGE 99 In upper case? Because lower case is much easier and SYN {tilt} {Synchronous Idle} — needed by synchro- faster to read. lower case should be the default case nous transmission systems to get into. or when one has only the one case. There is no reason why stay in. synchronization when no other each FORTRAN or BASIC processors cannot understand signal is available to them. lower case variable names and verbs just as easily as Eta no} {End of Transmission Block} - indicates the they can understand upper case. end of some division of data that the trans- I always recommend getting a terniinal with both cases mission system must make. unrelated to any it it is at. all affordable. Second best is making sure that a division in the format of the logical data itself. single-case terminal is retrofittabie later. if necessary. And if a single-case terminal. get it in lower case only. it possible. There has boon much meetings in the com- if One lists each symbol by' * puter trade press about eyestrain resulting from using computer terminals. Is the reason obvious? name and then shows its action STICKS ti. 1 between parentheses. The other asks These are the control characters. The most important you to depress in turn all the funny distinction in ASCII is the split between sticks tl-1.t3on+ trots. and sticks 23. Graphics. Welll see this later on in keys on your terminal . . .

the standards for Code Expansion {to B bits or more}. d, and Code Extension {alternate sets. such as Cyrillic for the USSR. and Kate itana for Japan}. STICKS D. 1 — Physical Communication {4} Unfortunately. there is. despite the standard. much This group is used for communications. It includes: difference between the ways that various terminal de- vices handle these control characters. They may act dil- NUL {W1} {Null} — the standard says that it is ”used” ferontiy. or they may not be operative at all. I have two to accomplish media fill or time till” . . . ”may very useful programs. written in the TEX language {Hef- be inserted into or removed from a stream of er-ence S}. Cine lists each symbol by name and then data without affecting the Information con- shows its action between parentheses. The other asks tent of that stream.“ And that's exactly what you to depress in turn all the funny keys on your terrni+ the standard also says about DELete {H15}. net. and then tells you what control characteris} they which it lists as a control character even generate. if any. though it is not in the control sticks! The only difference i can one between them is that on GRAPHICS FOR THE CONTRGLS perforated tape you can make any character There are standard graphical representations for the into a fiELete. but none into a Null. 32 controls. space. and delete. They are defined by ISU CAN {HS} {flannel} — the receiver is to disregard the 2134?. American Standard £3.32. and ECMAJ i". and are data received up to that point. starting from shown integral to Figure 1. Some terminals are adver- restart point that receiver and sender have tised as ASCII terminals. and yet generate Greek or agreed upon. It is common in timesharing for other characters for these positions. Don't believe it! Cancel {often generated by a ControlJi} to These symbols are every bit as useful as any Greek char- work on a line-atelime basis. to delete an acters could be. unwanted string of entry characters. and et- There are live groups in the basic control set. fectively put one back to the position of re STICKS ill. “I — Logical Communication Control {10} entering the entire line. In this case. the This group is used for both communication and for agreement between sender and receiver is labeling of media. It includes: "back to the last CH.” But there are many other ways that Cancel could be used. and for SDH {tiff} {Start of Heading} — used as the first shame parallel as well as serial transmission. for in the heading of an information message. SUB {tf‘ld} {Substitute} — a character that says prob- STX {era} {Start of Text} — terminates the heading just before the text. ably we would have had another character in this position it we could have figured out ETX {DIE} {End of Text} — Last character in the text what it was supposed to be! There are many message. Unfortunately. it is generated on reasons for such confusion — perhaps {:3in many terminals via Controiwc. and that‘s just didn't check out. But it is better to put in a to the right of Controls-it on the keyboard. SUB to keep the field lengths and such cor- which is commonly used to cancel a bad in- rect. Moreover. note its symbol. a mirror im- put Iine. And if you mickey -— ouch! age {not the Spanish inverted} question EDT {that} {End of Transmission} — the last character in mark. if this is displayabie. it will tell you any transmission. and usually it turns your definitively that the system doesn't know device off! what it is. and you can make a good guess in END {05} {Enquiry} - requests a response from a re- many cases. particularly in word text. mote atation. either an identification of that EM{1I‘Q] {End of Medium} — defines the previous stations Who are you?} or its status. character as the last usable character on salt. {are} {Acknowledge} — used by a receiver to reply that medium. whether or not there is more re "yes“ to a sender. cordable space on the medium. DLE{1IEI} {Eiata Link Escape} —- an Escapfi character. STICKS D. 1 - Device Control {11} especially for communications. analogous This group is used for control of devices such as ter- to ESE {1ft 1}. it signals the start of a charac» minals. ter sequence that causes a shifting into HT {tits} {Horizontal Tabulation} — the standard says another set of communication controls. that is ”advances" the active position to the whenever they are needed. next predetermined character position on Nikki {1th} {Negative Acknowledge} —- used by a receiver the same line.“ There are two ways this can to reply “no" to a sender. work:

1W fHTEHFACE AGE HA? 19.75

1. Flight at the terminal, it if has the herb For example, the sequence a BS A BS A rental tab capability built in. Sometimes would strike the A three times on a hard» you can set the tab positions by using the copy device, and make it look boldface terminal only: ahnost aiways the computer {such a sequence can also be translated to can be made to set the tabs on the tenni- calla boldface font in .photocompcsitloni. nal. Then when you hit HT during entry, or I“Editing indications. For example. in legisla- HT is read from the computer output. the tive bill drafting to indicate the deleted or printing or displaying iactivei position will changed portion: ship to the next tab setting- This is obsolete. 2. By a formatting program in the computer, IForming composite characters, e.g.: which must be given some indication of i :1: a: t if I } EiHungarian torinti the tab setting positions in force at any IForming accented letters, primarily for particular point in the tile. The program European languages. Examples: than simulates horizontal tab movement g e Bificandinavian letters following 2} by filling the lines with spaces as needed n s s a it to achieve the alignment. VT {W11} {Vertical Tabulation} — the standard says Warning: Backspace is entirely different that it “advances the active position to the from a cursor movement on a video terminal! same character position on the next prede- When the cursor is moved to a position termined line." And it you agree with some- where a character is already entered. suc- body else. it can be to the first position in ceeding entry in that position usually that line instead. This is a very dangerous destroys the original character and replaces character to use. It cannot be used directly it with the new entry. on any terminal that I know of. Even if it I personally haven‘t seen any video terminals could, the implementation rules are not sup» with a true backspace. A former president of plied unambiguously in the ASCII standard. Infoton told me it could be done as an engi- And for use by a formatting program, one neering special for about Elmo onetime cost. would have to predotine the number of lines Warning: There are three ways to create to be stripped. That's pretty tough when you underscored text for hardcopy terminals: are inserting and. deleting lines, as every pro- grammer knows. 1. The characters, that many backspaces. and that many underscores {or vice verse}. LF rotor {Line Few? —— like vertical tab, but iust to the 2 A character, BS, underscore, the next next line, which is clean enough. It receiver character, etc. This is called the canonical and sender agree {again as in vertical tab}, it form, and is used quite commonly. can be to the first position of the next line, in 3. Underscore, BS, character, underscore. which case it is called New Line {NLL Some etc. manufacturers implement this- I personally prefer having a separate Carriage Fleturn and I have noticed a lot of difficulty moving bacir Line Feed. Both codes can be generated with and forth between hardcopy {at my home} a single keystroke, and they often are. and video {in my office] terminals. fine tends FF [W12] {Form Feed} - again like vertical tab, to the to underscore on the hardcopy terminal and forget that trail of the pairs are going to be same cahracier position unless sender and receiver agree that it is to the first position in wiped out by the cursor on the video termi- the new line, except that the tab is to a new nal. in the first two methods above, It's the line position that is related to a form of some text that gets wiped out, and it's hard to read also [those that told. 11 inches apart, for ex* on the fly. So if you plan to display a file on a ample}. This control could run wild it your ten video terminat, find another highlighting method, or use the third underscoring con— minal or othm display device is not equipped vention. Even that may give problems if done to handle it, so use it with caution in files. by embedding an underscoring command in on {are} (Carriage Hetumj — moves the active posi- the file you pass to a formatting program; tion to the first position on the same line! most such programs put the underscore last Not like typewriters, They have effectively in— instead of first. corporated the New Line feature. But the BELWTI {Bell} —» sounds an audible signal to gel the non-wvancing GR is better for terminals, user's attention. Some terminals are not so even it it is misnamed. Neither video termia equipped. but they should be. it's good nails nor ball and delay wheel typewriters human engineering. But please give me an have carriages, so live with it. adjustable volume control ! 33 {015] {Backspace} — Backspace is a very tricky the tour device controls for unspeci— character. (in some terminals, such as video end then there are D64 - In positions terminals, there is no key to generate Back- fied purposes, D01, D62, D03, and Different manufacturers treat these litre space for entry into the text stream or butter. 1i1 through 1M. anything that they rrrany it can be created via Control-H. Even a wild card in poker — they make them to much competibil ity, so baware. then, it may or may not be operative. want. doesn‘t load Backspace is meant for physicai move- STICKS ti, 1 — Field Separators [it] or ment of the active position {which may This group is used for formatting and string process; may not coincide with a cursor positron, ing. These are the separators in positions 1:12 to 1l15. i includ- when such exists}. Historically, it was got the idea originally from the Word Mark in the IBM ed for hardcopy terminals and other hard- H01, which used an extra bit in the low-order character copy devices for some of these uses: in a hair! as a delimiter. ASCII uses special and separate 'Underscoring to nderiining}. characters to indicate a hierarchical structure. Uriginally four remain: i"Either tonne of highlighting, such as bold. I put in eight such characters. but only these tl‘lfTEHFA GE AGE 1'01 HA? rare

FS{FiIeSeparator — tn 2} Washington. DC. some GStGroupSeparator —ti13} {202} 466-2283 Telex 29042 HS {Record Separator — tltrlt REFERENCES UStUnit Separator — 1ft 5} . AHS IS alt-19?}; available from the American National Stan- FS is most inclusive. US the least inclusive. And we can dards institute 1430 Broadway New York. It? tiltitti. consider the blanltfspace as the next lower order aspara- 2. lSC era. avialable from ANSi {Reference 1}. tor from these. Suppose we had a line of text like this: 3. Fl W. Banter. ASCll - the data alphabet that will endure.‘ in Management of do to elemen is in reformation processing. {texttiUS{text2‘lUS{text3}FlS{text4'iUSitextSIGSitextSi National Bureau of Standards tSTSCctobar. that [in many terminals these delimiting control characters s H. W. Earner. ‘A view of the history of the ISC character would not print. so we would see only a continuous stream. code." Honeywell Computer J. 6. No. I. 19H. flit-252. 0n others they might show as spaces. A TEX command 5. EH. Clemons. “Character codes: who needs them?". Honey- to break the line at the record separator would be: well Computer 4.5. Ho.3.1ST1.1c3-1d6. S. The TEX Subsystem of the Timesharing System. Series Sit scan:line:'rs Level or. Honeywell Information Systems. soc Smith Street. Wattham. IHIA 0215-4. Crder DFTE. The variable ‘left would contain ”{textt} . . .. {text3]". The variable 'right wouid contain "ltextdi . .. fiend)". ACKHCWLEDGEHEHTS Thanks go to coworkers at Honeywell Inton'nation Systems: STtCtiS 0.1 —- Changing Sets {3} Eric Clemons for much background. insight. and experience This group is used for moving to and from alternate gained from working for a long time as chairman of ISJE — the graphic and control sets. This includes ESCap-e {Ill 1]. committee charged with the development of ASCII. And to Pat Shift Out {SIM}. and Shift In {Bit 5}. Sheliy. ACM representative on ANSI x3. for collecting all the These basic control characters have permitted design of various national and international standards documentation a quite marvelous structure for extension and expansion. It upon which many of the figures were based. allows us to code and classify most of the wortd‘s graphic FCDTHDTES symbols for computer storage. interchange. and display. ‘For those curious about the reverse slash. it came from ALGCL This big area will form most of Part III of this article. 5B. The reference language specified it and if as the symbols for AND and CH respectively. I put the reverse slash in so IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT these could be made as ill-character groups ,_ and The ASCII Collating Sequence "rod will still see many terminals where this vertical bar is ASCII and Programming Languages broken in the middle. This resulted from a hassle with the PUI people. who wanted to stytixe the exclamation point {2ft} as a ASCII and Media vertical bar for CH in that language. And of course that would Keyboards make the graphics the same. The compromise {at horrendous ASCII and Displayl‘Printing cost in people time} was to braait the real vertical bar in ASCII. But it turned out that the PLII people didnfl really need it. or Code Extension —- Alternate Controls else it gained no momentum. so the real vertical bar is back to Code Extension »— Alternate Graphics normal in ASCII-1 SW. Let‘s fix these terminals. 1|“the ltatians also have a different solution to hyphenation and ASCII and Nona-Latin Alphabets right iustificallon. It ignores the syllable structure and simply Code Expansion — 3-bit ASCII demands that if. when you get to the last position in the line. the current word is not yet completed. that last character shall WHEHETD GET MORE INFORMATIDN be underscored. and the word continued without loss on the There are four sets of Information Processing Stan-- next line. I rather like it. dards that may be of concern to you: 'ISC. Sold only through ANSI {American National Stan- THE FATHER OF ASCII. Robert W. Samar dards Institute]. which has the franchise. That makes Flobert " Bob“ Be-r the prices high - much higher than in other countries. mer received his ItritilSl. These are American National Standards devel- AS. in Mathemah oped via the KS and X4 committees. mostly. Prices still ice from Albion Col-t pretty high Iege in 194d. and a 'ECIvIA {European Computer Manufacturers Associa' Certificate in Aero- tioni. 114 Rue du Flhone.1204 Geneva. Switzerland}. nautical Engineer- Free. and they have a lot more advanced standards ing from Curtiss- than ISO and ANSI. But a modest donation would not Wright Tech a year beunwelcome. later. ll*‘i'our friendly US. Government. in the person of the His vast work ex- Department of Commerce. National Bureau of Stan- perience includes dards. Institute for Computer Sciences and Technol- employment with ogy. in Gaithersburg. MD ESTES. If by any chance you the meter leaders of are employed by the U. S. Government. you get FIPS the aircraft and niec- PUSS {Federal Information Processing Standards ; tronics Industries— Pub- lications} for cheap. Ctherwlse. see ANSI. {Refer to most recently. as Senior Consulting Engineer with Tables 1a. 1b. and to}. In many cases they are essena Hoorayweil Information Systems. tiaily reprints of the ANSI standards for a fraction of Highlights of his many accomplishments include: The the cost. discovery of polynomial telescoping {1954}; creation of If you can't wait for the standards to be approved and the PRINT 1 programming system for tern {1956}: devel- published. catch them in progress. Aslt CBEMA. the opment of FCHTHANStT; development of CCMTHAN. one of the three major inputs to CCSCL: development of sponsor of ANSI x3. to put you on an observer list for the committee in your area of interest. The address is: XTFtAH. predecessor to ALCCL {1953}; was a motor influ- ence in the choice of the 3-bit character in IBM System Robert Brown. Cirector of Standards 350 {1M}: an influence in building the 11nd and soon Computer 5. Business Equipment Manufacturers systems; and editor of Honeywell Computer Journal. Association He has an impressive list of over “it publications to 1823 LStreet NW his crediti‘ :

102 IN TERFACEAGE MAY TREE

The abstract aspects of ASE” were treated in Part L because the complete decision is made in the leading Now we come to some aspects of usage and rmpierrtertta digit. Again. a worthless sequence. tron. Certainty one major use area is the ordering of fires. The way to achieve a proper ascending sequence is to separate the values into two groups. ordering those with THE ASCll CDLLATUHG SEQUENCE plus signs in ascending sequence. and those with minus To out items in some ordering. the entire precedence signs in descending sequence. Then put the plus group relationship for that ordering must be defined. Higher or following the minus group. And vice verse for a total de« tower. precedes or follows. or whatever. For single chair scending sequence. Notice that this works regardless asters. this ordering reialionship is called the “collating of whether the sign precedes or follows the digits. sequence“. The ASCII standard used to say that the collating se- Drawing Alphabetic F hid: quence for both graphics and control characters is Alphabetic ordering is even more complex. particu defined simply by their binary representations. Later it truly in handling both upper and lower case. Again the added a warning that this collating sequence “cannot implied ASClI collating sequence can go wrong. People be used in many specific applications that define their who have not studied the collating problem for data con: own sequence". What an understatement! raining both upper and lower case are inclined to iump The 19?? version hedges and speaks all around the to wrong conclusions. I did myseli. for the lam Stretch problem without making it clear- We not all that difficult. computer in 1953. assigning the ascending binary se- Suppose you have two files. and you want to know how quence as AaEch. Using this for a telephone directory they difter andtor how they are the same. For this pur- would give us the lefthand column. The straight binary pose. the implied collating sequence [straight binary sequence of ASE-ii would yield the righthand column. comparison] is just fine. The two files will be in the jUSl slightly different: same order. and can be matched. De Carlo De Carib Whether that straight binary ordering can be used for De La Flue De La Flue any other purpose is doubtful- It won't work for signed De Long De Long numbers. DeLah DeLaHue DeLartcEy Dis-Lair Oraldnp Numerals DeLaRue DeLancey Take these four values: 22. 13. minus 6. and minus fit. Delancey Delancey If the sign is placed before the digits. ordering by the de Carlo de Carlo A313” collating sequence yields: de la Flue de la Ftue + 13 deLancey deLancey + 22 Either version will get a lot of anguished subscribers! »—. DIE In the simplest case. two alphabetic items must be — 31 compared with the case ignored. Dnly if they are than This is obviously worthless. It's because ordering is equal is case called into consideration to break the tie. decided left to right. and the minus sign has a binary and it is also applied successiyely Iefhtowight! value 2 higher than the plus sign. Dr if the sign were to In short. the upper and lower case versions of: a letter follow the numeric values we would get: do not both get full graphic significance. Typing either g5 .F ”T" or “”y will indicate a “yes“ reply. but ”M” will not. 13 + Because the case distinction is minor. comparisons 22+ must first he made on major distinctions. with the minor 31 ~— distinctions used only as 'lie'breakers. decanting of lelu

54 INTERFACE AGE JUNE 19??

ters mus-21mm be asthma-Jared mrhhr. if amnmpi-ifiihed wan-a 3| I. [I- II- [0- i- i- i- [- backapacei hm thks heads us ihm rul‘EE c‘fimr’ghed by

1 ' k lil III I. I- II. III I. I. twang-n govmnmemg. and wnh‘t he Earhanaerea here. a. .J- .0 .1 .‘1-l Real life is mare cnmhlicated than this. The hrflerwhg and sequencmg of aharactews and wards cannm always be accum-phshed by simple binary campanwh m‘ ”cums-5. There are CDHEUUCHEHE flush as U‘Hanily. I‘lnfflrmallque 0 0 [as (jam gracess-ihg i5 called in French]. and Ernrt-ih-Jflhes

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BECEUEE we at first ignorefl case hem. De [Janna am! he 1 8 8 H X a a Carla ham Idemical but Dfittflfflfifi TIE-Breaking :5 game my appending the binary hatiern repreaenhhg ca-aa. km 1 9 9 I Y - A upper. '1” for Ina-war. Specifically; fl1flEZIH1‘1 tan DE: C.alral.@~. 111301 1 H 1m GE CENTS. 1 10 : J 2 a a D E C. A R L '53! 1 11 DE Carin d4 45 EU 43 41 52 4E3 dF :fith} K E -:- 5

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There is, me more 35mm of ASCII Ufifi'ful m the maim-

JUHE 1935 INTERFACE AGE 65

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charactervstrmg-cehstahts m PL-l ehe sertte ether eregremmmg tertguage. cemments terget that teehshhess. term care get ey' Wrt‘h Fer these pureeses ehiy. ether ASCII characters may he the excremetreh eemr as DR. she the crrcerrr: used. erewerhg there Is agreement eetweeh the sertrter Hex- as NOT the rmeertaht eerht tn seeree and TECEWEF fer any Interchange et seerce rjttjtgramg ereerarrr mterchange rs re have the Ft’tfi'flflfi’fl The TEX language has gene farther Ihar‘t thrs general re‘eresehratrees et the characters Excheh'gere' caetrert. There the specific characters have eerrt‘teheht Cerrectty names. Fer esamele- ehe ceule sat.r tare Atrheegh the character BLANK rseacet rs shewrt .as the ttaegee‘ tewer case "n ' tt‘t the Irheteee : " FQRTHAN and PH! sets. there ts he errnrrrrg tactuat hne teee Ihsree the eeetest grephrc re thetcete rt Fer att pracrrcat eer- tt ttzeesfltheteee eeses. rt rs teeth.r the Space et ABC-rt (ere; and It weule be true. because ”It" Is the permanent heme -Feer et these true tehgr‘eeges thet APL; have et Line Feed The centre! characters have flames that are the S strewn rrt 2M. When the thterhetrenat the letters trerrt the ASCII chart. erecettee he the ester- Heterence Ltersreh er the cede rs esee. thrs isk te shew that they are reae-ehltr varrahles 'tt'l’th eerrrte— eecerrtes the eertrersat u_:.'errehc1.t semeet. heht centeht. TEE-t: can Ih tact eeerate eeeh alt 256 char- whrch r5 atse acceeraete acters et ASCII m an 3-bit byte. all 512 m a gen byte. Mrnrmet BASH: uses “#1 whrch rs the Inter- hahenat Heterehce Versreh syhteet The ha- trehet symeets. such as the Ehghsh eeerte‘ APL =Str'ctrs E and Fterettearrty tether cese etehseert srgh. ere arse acceeraete are reetecee entrrety except ter the DEtete fleerttfln, Space ts nenprtnttng, attheugh the Symeet strewn ts SP. cards. he Ampersand titre! rs her used that wrrtrhg seerce Reading and Dunchme eeurement ter punch eregrer‘rts. except as the test character et a mg HEW the-chartrcal- IS 3-D EIDEF‘ISWE that W‘Ifltflfiemeuter as“ why tree r't that tree rs re he centrheee en the next DEDDEE are unltI-teltr the use them Se. turtle mtght We WE" nether here With the representetren el hSCtI en thrs reaggns PLtt -th eesr‘tr’en an. the excternetren eerht rs re- meerum? I can ‘thlt‘II-t et at least three etacee’ by a vertr‘eet bet ter DH. 'h scientrst at the US Natrehat Bureau et Standards -trt eesr’tree fitttt. the crrcemtterr r5 reetecee' SEIICI” ehce that If punch cares were on the way eet. tt he the semeet shewe. ter NOT. was the limit WIS-Idem he ever saw :1qu en an upward -tt tree have te use yeer terrm'het ter heth PLtt ”539E CUWE THUS that are ”tree he be armed ter a lens JUNE IQFB tht TERRACE AGE 5?

15!! EM A1151 FIFE ES! as A5 CCITT .IIS GMT PUE

Hellerith Punched 1:61"? H- ILEEI-TWD 1!. 12113.11 £6351“! 1%: Card code Efl21 l£.25 .36 Ii

Track Aesignlent - 1113 1D 13.6-1165 2 22£3.E 3330i} 1062 E6221 ES.‘ I! Peri. Tape 53_nu

Traci: Assign-mt - 1362 5 13.1%1973 3965 10135 12.? II Hag Tape $3.25 200 cpi Hill 9-track

Track Assign-ent - 962 12 13.22-1??3 3*1 £503f1 1909 EEZEE 12.? ll Hag Tape 1863 $3.?5 EDD cpi HEZI 9-track

Track assign-ent - 3?35 36 13.39-1973 25 #50312 12.? II flag Tape 53.?5 1690 cpi FE 9-track

Track Assign-ent - DP 13.5i-19?& 5D 12.? ll Hag Tape 5&52 $5.25 5250 cpi EEH 9-track

Labeling I File 1flfl1 13 13.27r1??7 12‘3.? £T32 1Dfifl Structure - 12.? an HT (unpriced)

Track hasignaent - 3275 3* I3.£3—19?? 51 SETPIT Hagtape tassette 3&0? $5.T5 3.31 an, 32 ball

LabeLing I File Struct. - DIS #1 3.51 Hagtape Caseette #341

Track assignment - DIS #6 13.56-191? 6.35 I. Cartridge Tape ans: ta.2c ea bane PE

53931213. Simian;fcrfflfiilenfjmraicalLiefiia

Isa EEHA ans: FIFE can as as thTT 115 5051 PLB

Bit Sequencing in 13.15~19?b 1fi-1 H.£ Serial Transmissian 53.flfl I.‘

char. Structure I Parity Il.16-19?fi 1?—1 u.c Sense - Serial-byeait $3.5fl I.£

thar. Structure I Parity :3.25-19?fi 18-1 H.‘ Sense - Paralleleby-Bit 53.5O I.£

Procedures fur Using 1T£5 16 13.25-19?fi IE£3.13 iSHSIT 1£B£I1 EDI-UH. Enntral Chara. 516.50

Hessage Heading 1T£5 I3.5?-1?T? Fnreats $5.25

Advanced Data flue-un. Bfifl Contact Procedures 13.55

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JUNE 193-3 IN TERFAEE ABE fl time. and you may need to transfer some of those files Many more are under development. Arguments are rag- to other media that you do use. ing internationally on the merits‘of packet switching. fibers is some likeiihood that microcomputers could be byte protocols. valueaddsd systems. opennworlring sys- used in the reading and punching equipment itself. to tems. tariffs. data movement across national borders. make it less expensive. the 3.25 protocol. etc... etc. A‘lT is offering a new service 'ASCII users are going to be confronted for a while yet because they suddenly discovered data-undervaico with one of the several versions of IBM's EBCDIQ. and {Buy}. Ali i can tell you now is that it is all based upon the punch card assignments provide the only legitimate A56". and the proposed protocois are all dependent link for conversion of EBCDiC files to ASth. upon the secs control characters in stick it and 1. It will So Figure 6 defines the hole patterns for the binary en- take years for this to shake out. and for new all one can codings. And Figure it defines the encodings for the do is get on the CEEHA mailing list {see reference. Part hole patterns. Don't worry about the inconsistency in i. INTERFACE AGE. May. tars}. the relationships. Nothing can be done about it now. ASCII AND THE METRIC SYSTEM because it started with Herman Hollerith's first U3. The full ASE" graphic set {both cases} is sufficient. to Census machines in 1890. At first only digits and + and indicate all symbols and prefixes oi the SI {international — signs were used. Then the code was expanded to the System of Units. the new metric system}. with three es' upper case alphabet. And other special characters for captions. They are the Greek letters “omega" for “ohm“. commercial use. When FDHTHAN came along in 1964. it and “mu" for “micro“. and the degree symbol for Gel- turned out that the limited capability of the subset of a sius temperature. These three characters will be provid- Stilt set would not permit the graphics needed for scien- ed in 5-bit ASE" (see Part til. next month}. Meanwhile. tific work. For a long while there were dual graphic rep for these. and also for such equipment that has only a resentations for several of the punch card code combine- single case there is a standard way of representing the t-ion-s. and this carried over into printer chains. and so on. 5| units and prefix-es. This is given in ’lntemationai Stan- The only logic that the patterns follow is that they do dard sass. ”Representations of 3| Units and Diner Units or do not. have a punch from among imp sis possibilitm: for Use in fiystems with Limited Character Sets“. and 12*punch {top row} also in American standard despots. ‘11-punch {next to the top row} To keep the record straight. let‘s first look at the char- D—punoh acters used for the prefixes. They're shown in Table 2. B—punch which indicates muitiplos from m to the — 13 up to 10 to spunch {bottom row) the + 13:

a punch from among the digits 1 through "i' including the nopunchvatvell combination {HULL this w + i i 1! - i gives 256 combinations. just right for the shit code eats E5 1s atto ta} Although ASCII was technically only a T-bit code at the pets {P} 15 femto if} time this rule was formuiated, it was felt necessary to tera {T} 12 pico {p} plan ahead a little. gigs [G] 5 nano in] MI I»! limits Tip- rage {hi} 6 micro '

Figure 3 gives a compact representation of several kilo {kl 3 milli int} relationships. among which is the assignment of ASCII hecto [h] 1 2 oenti [cl bit pattern to s-trsclt magnetic tape. The jumbled assign- do: so 1 «so {at ment may remind you of the “firing order" for the cylin- ders of an automobile engine. In fact. we used to call it Table 2. Metric Prefixes lost that. it was intentional for increased reliability. As Above 3 there are no powers except multiples of 3. This in so many cases. better technology has removed the practice breeds better comprehension. like marking oil need for pseuliar design. but the assignments are un- three's in writing numbers of many digits. Also. as a changoeble because of data file investment. memory convenience. all symbols are upper case for There Is no parallelism in recording and reading on powers greater than + 3. And there are no conflicts with cassettes and cartridges. The ASCII bits are recorded the symbols for the units of measurement. serially in the track. Thus Figure B does not consider Now. again for the record. here are the ASGiI charecu these media. tens} used as symbols for the units: A ampere cd sandals Bo becquerel d day C coulomb g gram '6 degree celsios h hour F fared l litre Gy gray Im lumen H henry is ius J joule p micro K, halvin m metre hi newton min minute {time} 9 ohm - of meta ASCII and Communications Pa pascal rad radian Not only is the topic of AECII and communications a S siemens s second {time} very complex and large dissertation for this article — it T tools or sic-radian Is also undergoing substantial rethinking. enlargement. V volt t tonnoimetric tent and invention. You will have to follow on your own the W watt megmrarn workings of the GGITT. the various networking systems Wb wsber of the several large and many small manufacturers of Table 3. Metric Units computer systems. and the offerings of the common car- riers — either on the local distribution system {via ATTI Table 3 shears the rules clearly. Units not named after or direct distribution [vie Satellite Business Systems). people are all lower case. as shown in the righthand col- Many of the existing standards are listed in Table 1b. umn {although I do know a hir. Day]. In the Iotthand col-

fl! I‘HTEHFAGE AGE JUNE WW

umn are the units that are named after panels. The And in additien: names at the units are net capitalized at all. but the sym- 5 {siernens} 5| E sie bels begin with an upper case letter. h theur} baseme HFI er hr I said previeusly that there were he cean-icts between t {tenne} TNE the unit and prefix cymbals. But ycuive prebably net-iced 'd" Examples: fer both “day“ and “duct", “h“ fer beth “beer" and “hec- 15 ueHM is 1s “a te". "m" fer beth “metre” and ”mini“. and ”T" fer bath “tesla” and “tern". OK. But there isn‘t any cenfusien in 3T3.15 r. = the Gel actual usage. because the prefix precedes the unit: Hetice that he plurals are used in symbel cembinatiens -— hitCfiDDHMS. but UDHM. dd is a deciday {2.4 heursi hh is a hectcheur HOD heurs} ASCII AND KEYBOAHDS hit is a hectehenry {but can’t ever use the term] Technically. a keyboard is an ASCII keybeard if it gen- mm is a millimetre erates the preper cedes fer the full set cf #:3th graphic Mm is a megametre {1M the speed at light} and centrei characters. Mereever, hens ef the graphic TT is a teratesla Mew!) characters shculd have any centre! properties. There are many types at special Itevbeards — Dverak, I am net suggesting that the prefixes sheuld be ap- a twat-sided ene used like an accerdien with the hands in plied in ether than the primary metric units {the ascend a vertical plane. Teuch-Tene and its derivatives, etc. is the primary time unit; hear and day are net}. even Theie are new fermal standards to relate these keyboards theugh the timesharing system I custemarily use in ASCII. Fer typewriter-style keybeards. hewever, there figures my time in milliheurs. But when yeu get accus- are twe versiens given in the American Natienal Stan- tcmed. the prefixes are very valuable in ether ways. Fer dard. One is derived frern the usual electric typewriter example. an American b'illien is a itilernillien, whereas keybeard. the ether is called the “bit'paired” keybeard. the British billing is a megamillien! And my metric teach- flnly the bit-paired keyboard will be shcwn and discussed ing pie-gram understands such things as ltiletathems. here. because the ether term is the subject of prepesals The “space” character is else vital te cerrect SI usage. her extensive change due in the grewth cf Were Pre- It must eccur between values and units, like 123.6 mm, cessing. Altai Cemmittee K4A12 is studyingthis new. and 22 'G. The bit-paired keybeard was designed fer minimum And den't target anether peculiarity ef AECiI as an in! circuitry cest. Thus the "at" symbei {4th} is paired with ternatienal alphabet: [tin] is abselutely net defined as a the accent grave (film. "A" [4”] with "a" {fill}, and “+ " “decimal point” {her is it defined as “averted”. which in {H11} with {dirt}. Thus the shift key affects each the United Kingdern is ”full step"t. Fer must let the rest ether key by eniy a 1-bit change. ef the wane. the serum: {1H2} is the decimal marker, and This Ireybeard is shewn in Figure 9. It is the inter- the deficit is used tc marl-r eff threes. That's why the recent- change keybeard cf ECMAiSE. The numbered arrews key rnended practice fer marking eff threes is in use the tie the netes be changes that weuid make this EGMA space. net either cemma er period. E.g.. "1 234 car mm“. keybeard inte the ANSI keyboard fer ASCII. It is else Te save yeu the bether et inciting up the standards fer equivalent tn the keybeard ef iSD Standard ease-tars use with limited character sets. here is the algerithrn: {Feetnete E]. 1. If yeu have seen with beth cases at alphabet. the three missing symbels are handled as: Main let Flam I i. Fer and ANSI keybeare', this irey is put to the ehrn fer 9 right cf the circumflex key. en the top new {see Gel (initial cap] fer ”G Here fit The Shift Key is put in its piece. u [lewer case} fer p {micre} 2. if this irey exists and is avaiiebie, the EGMA and 2. If yeu have enly ene case at alphabet {either upper lSfl standards put the underscere here. rerttev- er leweri, use it. and these three replacements ing if tract the ”zere” irey. remain as: 3. The ANSi ireyheard of scarce puts a ".5" here in OHM chm piece at the internatienai currency symbol. GEL er set 4i. This is where the underscere is remeved fer the U It ld—irey keyboard {see Here 2).

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5‘. Here EOMA and i343 show the 'ieyerrine” instead there has been a general trend toward using the Tail dot of the "tilde.” It's a question or styling. matrix shapes of EGHA Standard 42 for stylus printers. E. The ANSI keyboard has the reverse stash and This set of graphics is shown in Figure 1L1 vertical her here. rather than between the shirt For hard print elements. of course. one can get a near— trey and “2“ [see Note I}. iy infinite yariety of styles and tents. There are only two i'. The ANSI keyboard specifies the underscore however. specifically associated with computers — here. in doth shirts. rather than the positions OCH-n and DCHJ. “DEB" stands for “Optical Charac- shown as options in Notes 2 and 4. Practically ter Recognition". meaning that the shapes are so styled no keyboards render this. In tact. as I an: enter- that a computer-controlled scanner can read the shares:- ing this text. this is the only key where my into tars as printed on paper, and encode them directly from ten Victor deviates from the ANSI standard. it their shapes. has Line Feed there. with Return to its right —— a DCRIA is not suitable for human reading. We the tun- very consists arrangement. ny looking one with the diamond-shaped letter “Oh." i Cusliornartiyg the Control Hey is also tied to hitpahing in won't dignity It by showing the font here. it was thought such keyboards. The standards recommend that charac- formerly. with technology of that day, that Ming ters created in combination with the Control Hey should humans work harder to read letters would malts it easier use the graphic key in sticks 4 or E units higher. Thus and thus cheaper for computers to read them. This argu- "It.“ ISIS] or “x" {Ital in combination with the Control tiny ment turned out to he spacious. and with today‘s tech- produce CAN his}. Unfortunately this also means that rol-ogythere is no need totrseanythingotherthenDCH-B. Control-0 generates ETII (on). end whereas Control-J1 as DER-B is specified In I30 1fl?3i2 ECMAw-GD and ANSI CAN is used frequently. to erase an input line of test. X3 49. It Is the font shown in Figure 11. I I. It on my ET}: is not often wanted. Yet it Is a common misheyind IBM gottheli typewriter at home and on my daisywhsei to hit 0 rather then X. in many timesharing systems you element at the office. So it should be available for most will get a disconnect rather than a line deiets. hard elements, including the carousel type. The first six rows correspond to A80]! sticks 2—7. In Collect and Function Keys the first row. the pound and universal currency symbol The so-callod “QWERTY" arrangement is pmslent are for replacement as needed. In the fourth row. the throughout the world. Eyon the French “MEET?” set is undertins is discontinuous; a continuous form to shown being considered for change. But on top of these basics in the auxiliary set. This as! nice contains a matching so. there are hundreds of keyboard varieties. some at thorn cent acute instead of single quote, the real circumfies have "deal keys" (to. the platen or printing element is [not an up arrowhead}. a. cedllla. and an “in" of better not advanced when they are hit}. This avoids having to proportion. 13 use BS for accented letters. but it also creates dittlcul» ties in code generation. There we some general good practices that ASCII hey: boards shouid follow. To facilitate usage by those caper— lencsd with typewriters, all controls not used with type- writers should he located outside the customary touch— typing area. As a specific example. the Breakiinterrupt trey should be located where it is a definite effort to reach it (not mined In with the kayo-card}. I50 32-“ may he consultud for these considerations. Function Keys are those that genomic “oneness of more than one ASCII character. Examples are cursor keys. EmtoEDL etc. They should he located In spe- cial clusters. Most lmportantly. they must all penetrate ASCII codes for transmission when in character-startlrne mode. I know of sides terminals where the cursors do not generate codes, as they should not while in tut! page buttered mode: but they still operate In line made with- out generating codes. In this case the screen to alter- able. but there is no way of detecting it in the computer. litany keyboards will here some function hey: that are unlabeled, for deft-yourself assignment. These should also be clustered separately, and generate code se- Footnotes quences when In line mode. 1. With the distribution. ECHIL said "eons-53 Is an attempt to A30" AND MAY PRINTING impress portability of programs. It links the longtime chm When ASCII characters are displayed. it may he on a aster sets defined by the language standards. their coded video screen. paper. or 0019! [microfiche]. representatives by means of the To“ code and the imple- On the video screen there are a. number at methods to mentatlona on data carriers {punched tape. punched curds. magnetic tape and magnetic tape cascades and cartridges}. term the characters. mostly at the manufacturer‘s pref- It is a standard of a new type in which ulruady standardized erence. They are usually at pica [constant—width} spacing features are assembled in a new standardized combination tor WIMy. so an approximation of graphic duality aimed at supporting interchange and decreasing implemen- {such as typesetting} is not obtainable. When lower case tation dependency.“ is available, the risers and tails extend shore and below 1. iECl 253i} is tor the alphanumeric area of the hm oniy. the line for some screens. In others1 they fall within the It is augmented by too ail-3,49% — Keyboards for Coons boundary lines of the upper case characters. They may tries whose Languages have Alonso-silo Extenders. Guide- be shown In inyerss 1Iridno {light background clocki.or lines for Harmonization. and also by too 32444574 — Prin- clpies Eoysrning the Positioning of Control Keys on Key- highlighted by different brightness or blinking. Controls boards for title work wiii be taken up In Part III of this article. The fact that these are 'puidelines” and' ‘princtplss" Indi- For paper copy one usually finds either direct impact cate the complexity of the subject. Typewriter mmutac- of a formed letter. or stylus printing Either method Is tunsrs now supply over a hundred different keyboard arrange- suitable to proportional spacing I desired. Flattest“r ments as their catalog will Indicate. TM [NTEHFAGE AGE JUNE 19?!

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DUB-2 and W992 are shcwn in Figure 1b. Here these are net exceptiens frem the IFW, hut rather the cnty graphics assigned in the set. The additions are necessary to set type tcr newseapers thrcughcut Scandinavia. See the Crossbar-D. Cresscarvfl. the A-E ligature. and the Iceiandic Thorn.

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5‘2 J'N TEHFACE AGE JUL? FEW-S

Figure 1a doesn‘t show Set car because it deviates Figure 3 shows the contents ot the registered control more and is not oi that much general interest. It doesn't sets. Set 00? serves as control set for the graphic sets show the Japanese Kataitana set because that is com- nos-1.2 and DOB-1.2. for Scandinavian newspaper trans- pletelv different from the IFIV. In tact. Japanese indus- mission. And set 1126 is the control set for the worldwide trial Standard WEED-1969 is an fl-oit coded set with the newspaper transmission. defined by the IPTC {interna- lFtV tsee Set 014 for the dollar and yen signs] in the lower tional Press Telecommunications Council}. The 13 con. {bit 3 = 0] petition. and Set {113 in the higher portion. trol positions "not shown. and those where there is no with space reserved for tuture additional controls. This entry. are the same as in the International Reference Set 013 is shown in Figure 2. It is shown in its high'order Version (moon. position, to indicate the card codes at the same time. These newspapers are driving composition equip ment. not line printers. so that.' don't need VT and FF. Figure 2 also shows the Cyrillic set of the USSR state Their set is already defined. so thev don‘t need 50 and standard GDST 1305261". but it is not half of an 3-bit set 5!. They have (properly) assigned meaning to three as the Japanese do it. Rather it is another page of exten- device controls. And they're probably not doing payroll, sions. After 50 {Shift Out} is used. the Russian register so they don't need the tour intormation separators. But is operative. Following 5i [Shift In} it is the WW. Although theyP do transmit. and instead of choosing their own this set has no registry number new, it was submitted iunctions and placement they have chosen to he a recently by ECHA. and we expect an assignment soon. registered variant of the 150 Code. And all variants Bv the wav. both Kataltana and Cyrillic are shown in within this controlled and registered cluster can at least their DICE font. recognize each other. even it they can't print it!

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JUL? THEE l'HTEFl'FACE AGE 33

‘ rev nately. the work. I had to do to compact the standard. tryr Lfifimfil Ell 2'1 ing to make it understandable. turned up more than THU? Il'l' Ft} FE For-It Control. unreadability. lt turned up many logical flaws and ambi- fif‘l‘l l1“ Elm Eli! End to typographical} Eon-Id! guities. So it's back to the drawing 5312 FF Stilt sco Start It " t Eon—anti board. perhaps for a [”13- tlt ill. III. ttu‘rld Left considerable period of time. {H‘Ii SH HR Upper flail. Figures 4a through rte will give. however. some flavor UfiS 51 Li Loner Ilil 'lr'fl‘l lit] Font 1 than-rye to noroot of the controls under consideration. ”Eli! IE2 Foot: 2 thongs to italic Figure at shows the controls of Fonnat Type {FTJ 1 and 2. lifll it} Foot 3 Change to hold Format 1 is either the single character of the til-hit set. ‘UUI. EH Ill EH Itltt Herd {through precious space! shown ”12‘ F5 55 35 Sup! rfih f ft in the first column as “Be". or the 2-character se- ‘I ”5 ES El: if. 'Itild 'Clifiter quence of the type ”ESE Fe". where Fe is a final charac- 131‘ ES QR III! flood iii-flit ter tel-ten from true to ens. and whose column designa- 1115 US M" J'l' Justif’f tion is at less than Ce. I.e.. in an El+bit code. lNDes would “ Figure 3. Registered I:‘h'rntrol Character Suhstitutlon be Sills. In a irbit code it would be EEG 4m. Format 2 is of t?he type “ESE Fs". where F5 is a final taken from sec CODE EXTENSION 1N ACTIDN to Hal. To illustrate the operation of code extension. let's im- Figures 4b through do show controls with formats be agine some ecuipment that may not exist now: ginning with the control ”CSI". defined in Figure ale to on microfiche reader with automatic location controls. be either tilt"! {in the sun set} or "ESE: [” {in the T—hit on microfiche with ASCII {the Mail form] on the first two sets]. The six possible formats are: pages. the other pages containing other sets such as Katalrana. Cyrillic. Arabic. Greek. Hebrew. mathemati- cal symbols. astronomical symbols. etc. Also. symbol sets for selecting typestyies. weights. rotations. sizes. taztsrenr iraICSIFniF and elongations. su=rstrn;onr se=c51rn;rn1r "it display screen for the microfiche; it is to-ucheensir titre and generates i'ibit codes according to location Scitfilf-‘sl‘r ir=tstrstr touched on the display.

*As an alternative. keyboard tops with fibre optic bundles molded in as a matrix. so that the keytops can be lighted Pn stands for numeric paran'retertsl. Pa for a variable nun‘e with different symbols as selected. ber of selective parameters separated by semicolons. Now imagine that we are writing an astrology boot-r: The type it formats differ from type 3 only in inserting 'Trnc the intermediate character area just prior to the final. In the figures. the parameter value enclosed in parent those of you from under the stat of Aries. I. theses is the default value. That is. if the parameters are not actually inserted. i.e.. being null. then the effect is IDepress the “astro” key on the special keyboard the same as if the default val uelsl were inserted. mouse the shift in display for the fiche screen andror To give an example of how these controls operate. the keytop lighting loci: in Figure aid for the second mnemonic. SGH {Select ITouch the Aries symbol on the screen {or the keyiopt Graphic Flenditionl. It is represented first by CSl. the IIEllepress SI [Shift Int on the special keyboard Control Sequence Introducer. the parameter. and the 'And return to typing the rest of the sentence final one. This means that when the scharacter string

i will line this Ionrth .... ESClEm Now imagine what a computer would do to the input stream in driving photocompositiOn equipment. The is encountered. it should turn on rapid blinl-r in the lieldts} “astro” key generated an ESCape sequence for an astro- specified on your video screen. nomical graphic symbol. set that would have been regis- tered by AFNDH. When the input parser recognizes EEC. it analyzes the following characters. and then calls this set of character formation methods from the backup store. generates the character shape for Aries according It. I Ictlvo Line {containing all} to the character code after the final character. notices AP t Active Position tuber-o the cursor is) St. and returns to normal mode. El“ It Editor Function FE I For-at Effector Now we can envision how all of the world's printed Hi” I Horton-ital. tabulation material can be stored in machine-readable form. and in- III I titan-oars“ terchanged recognizablyl PM I Primary- luaitlary hot or so a Eoceived fictions“ Elli 1- Second-ry- husiltory Device ALTERNATE GGNTHflLS so =- String Deli-f tor In? R Vertical; flint-tion Work has been in progress for several years to develop on I nullified first {defined by this, SM, EH1 a companion standard for controls for devices such as Ha I reserved for future stand-retention GHT terminals. In the US this is contained in the ANSI document BSH £3.54. Additional Controls for Character Imaging- In a similar form. this 01 set is before the Godes Committee of ISIC:I Technical Committee 9? (Com— puters and Information Processing} as document 2 N Abbreviations for Figures Ila through on. 353. for consideration at its 1srs Ivtay 24-2E meeting. i had hoped to give the essence of this worlr in this in- stallment. There were only two negative votes in X3. which one could presume might be answered. Unfortur

84 INTERFACE AGE JUL? 19??

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JULYigfiB FNTEHFACE AGE 35

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% 3N TEHFAEE AGE JULY 3953 CUBE EXPANSIDH We have seen how ASCII was extended by making many related pages of the T-bit code. It is also possible to expand ASCII into an 3-bit code. or even 9-bit; and tflbit it we wished. for that matter. But an til-bit code is obviously the most logical one to concentrate on. and this has bee-n under development for several years. The proposed 8-bit Expanded ASE-II Code is shown in Figure 5. The identification of the graphic symbols is given in Table 3. One can observe many interesting things about this set. For example. it has the entire Greek set of smell let- ters except tor “omicron”. with eleven capitals to go with others from the Fioman capitals to complete the Greet: set. But apparently the committee didn‘t follow cancel. the Greet-I: alphabet mentioned in Table 1. They didn’t use the customary ordering ”atphaibeta‘garnma”. the way we learn our “ab-es”. l sup-pose it is argued that this set will never be used for language. only math symbols. And sis—eat. shown in Figure is. does not de mand the special capital “upsilon” shown in position 135. It the Greeks can agree to using a Floman capital “‘t'" for upsilon. could the Americans? You‘ll notice some math symbols. but not enough for APL In lent. the whole set seems highly slanted to mathe- matics. rather than business. It course there are the tour corner symbols for terms. Presumably the card suits will strike your eye. and you will wonder why so many ether usetul symbols were ignored in favor of these. Don't worry. they will always come in handy: it‘s sometimes usetul to have symbols whose meaning you can reassign without harm to programming languages. etc. The committee were obviously bridge players. tor spade-s collate high. This proposal has net had real public scrutiny yet. and it must be considered no more than a proposal. “Presum- ably K3 will agree about July that it should be sent out tor formal public review and letter ballet. My guess is that it will net be adopted in lust "the term you see here. FUTURE FGFl ASCII The methods are in place tor codiifyng all symbols that people use. They may be language alphabets. signs. drawing symbols. or controls for equipments. Rebate for example. Satellites are augmenting conventional tele communications systems. so that one can borrow cheaply and potmanently from electronic libraries. To prepare for this. other sets are being developed for registry. many through I51") Technicai Committee 4511. Automated Documentation. A lit-page mathematical symbol set is near submission. as are African sets. Wort: is started for Arabic. which will take about 5 sets to handle fully. although there is a commercial subset of 9d graphics. Another G1 set is being proposed for biblio- graphic controls. It contains four types — annotation controls. tiling controls. reference controls. and subject designators. Either 131 sets can come from process con- trol. animation and other graphics applications. etc. West Germany has proposed a new I50 project on text communication. to harmonize tale-connection of the more than one hundred varieties not typewriters {and heyv boards} throughout the world. The extension method of multiple ?~bit codes is ideal for this [3-bit codes imply too many keys or shift combinations for people to use easily. I am convinced that microcomputer users are going to develop some tantastic applications that will become widespread enough for their special graphic and control sets to be registered. How about a control set or two for sewing machines? In tact. it is very difficult to thinlr. of any general applica- tion where one could not find a usage for these regis- tered variants and extensional]

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