[fpc-devel] EBCDIC (was On a port of Free Pascal to the IBM 370)

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

steve smithers wrote:

> It should be noted that using Linux/390 doesn't remove the '^' problem.  IBM
> display unit (3270) keyboards, being EBCDIC devices, won't have the '^' on
> the keyboard so an alternative must be found.  (I'm assuming that Linux uses
> 3270 devices, maybe I'm wrong)

Linux on S/390 uses SSH, any of the standard X-based desktops, VNC and 
so on. I see no reference to EBCDIC, unless it's buried in options to 
control encoding for (emulations of) classic IBM peripherals.

> Finally, the suggestions about developing FreePascal/370 as an ASCII compiler
> seem somewhat pointless to me.  Why would anyone want to use an ASCII compiler
> on an EBCDIC system?  I accept fully that producing an EBCDIC version will
> present problems, but if this compiler is actually going to be used by anyone,
> these have to be overcome.

I repeat: IBM is now happily using ASCII on zSeries. That includes the 
CDSL system made available to developers 
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/linux/support/community.html

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]