IBM 029 Card Punch and ASCII Machines

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-05-10 10:56, Robert Jarratt wrote:
> I recall back in the late 70s using an IBM 029 Card Punch to punch cards for
> the DECSYSTEM-20.
>
>
>
> As I understand it, the 029 was an EBCDIC machine, but of course the
> DECSYSTEM-20 was ASCII.
>
>
>
> Does that mean there was an ASCII version of the 029, or that there was
> something in the card reader software on TOPS-20 that converted EBCDIC to
> ASCII?

Punched cards are actually not EBCDIC. Nor are they ASCII.
That said, yes, the card reader driver needs to translate the card 
encoding into ASCII when reading cards.

	Johnny