[Info-vax] VMS-based InfoServer

[Michael Kraemer]

Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:

> The parts of the world that I actually see, and/or use, have used ASCII 
> for many years now.  ISTR that big iron could handle ASCII; e.g. read 
> ANSI labeled tapes and translate ASCII to EBCDIC and vice versa.

Sure, but this is just like swapping bytes when confronted with
binary data from a machine with different byte order,
that is, the format of the foreign data has to be known.
z/OS (MVS) native encoding is EBCDIC.
When I last used MVS, it could read AL tapes,
but had difficulties to write them.

> I thought that EBCDIC would have gone out with 80 column punched cards!

And what about the megatons of EBCDIC data already stored on disk
and tape until then?

> Do they still use punched cards?  It's been about ten years since I last 
> saw one!

In a museum perhaps. Punched cards disappeared about 30 years ago.
I still use some, as bookmarks (in real books).