14 Jan
2011
14 Jan
'11
10:47 a.m.
How about "low density" floppy disks?
(ducks and runs)
________________________________
From: "Shoppa, Tim" <tshoppa at wmata.com>
To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Fri, January 14, 2011 9:09:05 AM
Subject: Character set pedanticness (was Re: Teletype)
Eric wrote:
>> There are no Teletypes that use Baudot code.
They use a US variant of
>> the ITA2 five-level code.
>> Baudot code was only used until about 1901. Murray code was used until
>> the 1930s. Everything after that used ITA2.
Tim wrote:
> That's a little like saying nobody actually
uses ASCII since 1968,
we're all really
> Using ANSI_X3.4-1968 or later. Technically true
but not common usage.
Eric wrote:
No, it's not much like that at all. Baudot code
used significantly
different character encodings than ITA2, such that a Baudot device and
an ITA2 device will not interoperate in any meaningful fashion.
ASCII-63, ASCII-67, ASCII-68, and ANSI X3.4 have only minor variations
and will generally interoperate reasonably well.
I'm not disagreeing that the academically correct term is ITA #2. (Interestingly
most web page hits today call it "ITA 2" or "ITA2" but the 70's
and earlier
books call it "ITA #2" when they are being pedantic.)
I'm just saying that in its Heyday, if you had to distinguish a 5-level
TTY from a 7-level TTY, the working terms were Baudot and ASCII. Although
technically incorrect.
Sort of like when I know the people who used and maintained what they
called a 11/74, and then I see folks here telling me that no, it's really
A 11/70MP :-). Yeah, in a certain aspect that may be what the paperwork called
it. But really everybody called it the 11/74. When I'm told that the
academically correct word for something, is different than what everyone
actually called it at the time, and I see Wikipedia etc. going for academically
correct rather than "actual working term", it sometimes feels like history
that I lived is being redefined underneath me by some sort of pedantic streak.
Another recent example of a different character set being redefined underneath
Me: On Wikipedia, the morse code for -...- is defined as "double dash" with a
Possible keyboard equivalent of "equals sign", something I never heard
till recently. I called it "BT" with a bar
Over top for most of half a century now. I don't doubt that some CCITT standard
Called it double dash in the past, just that me and the guys I know who use
Morse every day, never called it that.
This isn't new to me. I remember getting involved in altmode vs escape key
arguments
In the distant past. I always called it altmode, what right does anyone else
Have to call it escape? :-))))). Big smileys, because I discovered that three
Different ASCII codes (0174, 0175 and 033) were being used and I didn't know
until
Much much later.
Tim.