character codes and punched cards (was Re: y2k stuff)

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Mon Jan 11 20:57:59 1999

"Hans Franke" <Hans.Franke_at_mch20.sbs.de> wrote:
> Nop - or better partly correct - it is true that not every punch
> combination was legel (that would be 4096 possible) but at least
> there was a legal combination for any possible 8-Bit combination.
> Otherways I would have been impossible to boot from a punch card
> reader !

Still wrong.

Not all machines that had card readers could boot from cards, and even
the ones that could do so didn't necessarily have a 256-character set
(or 8-bit bytes).

For instance, the IBM 1401, which typically was booted from cards, but
had only 64 distinct characters.
Received on Mon Jan 11 1999 - 20:57:59 GMT