[Info-vax] VMS-based InfoServer

[JF Mezei]

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> I thought that EBCDIC would have gone out with 80 column punched cards!
> Do they still use punched cards?  It's been about ten years since I last 
> saw one!

Were punched cards in EBCDIC or did they have their own character
encoding ? With a punched card reader generating EBCDIC or ASCII
depending on brand/model ? (aka: an IBM reader would generate EBCDIC,
while a DEC reader would generate ASCII from the same deck of cards) ?

Or was the encoding of the holes such that it represented bit patterns
identical to EBCDIC  and the DEC readers would convert those to ASCII
while IBM readers just sent the raw data to the mainframe ?


Perhaps this is the crux of Mr VAXman's problems. Maybe he is still
using punched cards at home, and his card reader doesn't support quoted
printable ? :-) :-) :-) :-)



I hear that punched cards were still widely used in Florida as recently
as November 4th 2000 and they still have a number of punched card
readers in working condition.