Six-Bit Transcode, or Six-Bit Transmission Code, was, for a few years, one of the three character sets used by IBM for Binary Synchronous Communications. Transmission using 6-bit Transcode had higher throughput than transmission using 8-bit EBCDIC or ASCII, provided that the data to be transmitted used a limited set of 48 characters.
The IBM 2780 data transmission terminal was announced with Transcode support in 1967. Its successor, the IBM 3780 data communication terminal, announced in 1972, dropped Transcode support and added a "space compression" option.
Transcode is a six-bit character code. It relates to IBM's punched card code but, like EBCDIC, it is not BCD. Its 64 values consist of the 26 uppercase letters, 10 numbers, 11 symbols, space, and 16 control characters. Its 48 printable characters are ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789 .'-/@#$%&*⌑
; it cannot represent ,:;!?"()[]<>+^=_\`{}|~
. Characters are transmitted with odd parity. The 2780 cannot use the 16 control characters as data characters in Transcode mode. [1]
Six-Bit Transcode | ||||||||||||||||
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
0x | SOH | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | STX | . | ⌑ | BEL | SUB | ETB |
1x | & | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | SP | $ | * | IUS/ ITB | EOT | DLE |
2x | - | / | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | ESC | ' | % | ENQ | ETX | HT |
3x | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | SYN | # | @ | NAK | EM | DEL |
Character | Punched card code | 6-bit transcode | Hex |
---|---|---|---|
SOH | 12-9-1 | P | 00 |
A | 12-1 | 5 | 01 |
B | 12-2 | 4 | 02 |
C | 12-3 | 4 5 P | 03 |
D | 12-4 | 3 | 04 |
E | 12-5 | 3 5 P | 05 |
F | 12-6 | 3 4 P | 06 |
G | 12-7 | 3 4 5 | 07 |
H | 12-8 | 2 | 08 |
I | 12-9 | 2 5 P | 09 |
STX | 12-9-2 | 2 4 P | 0A |
. | 12-8-3 | 2 4 5 | 0B |
⌑ | 12-8-4 | 2 3 P | 0C |
BEL | 0-9-8-7 | 2 3 5 | 0D |
Sub | 9-8-7 | 2 3 4 | 0E |
ETB | 0-9-6 | 2 3 4 5 P | 0F |
& | 12 | 1 | 10 |
J | 11-1 | 1 5 P | 11 |
K | 11-2 | 1 4 P | 12 |
L | 11-3 | 1 4 5 | 13 |
M | 11-4 | 1 3 P | 14 |
N | 11-5 | 1 3 5 | 15 |
O | 11-6 | 1 3 4 | 16 |
P | 11-7 | 1 3 4 5 P | 17 |
Q | 11-8 | 1 2 P | 18 |
R | 11-9 | 1 2 5 | 19 |
Space | no punch | 1 2 4 | 1A |
$ | 11-8-3 | 1 2 4 5 P | 1B |
* | 11-8-4 | 1 2 3 | 1C |
US | 11-9-8-7 | 1 2 3 5 P | 1D |
EOT | 9-7 | 1 2 3 4 P | 1E |
DLE | 12-11-9-8-1 | 1 2 3 4 5 | 1F |
- | 11 | 0 | 20 |
/ | 0-1 | 0 5 P | 21 |
S | 0-2 | 0 4 P | 22 |
T | 0-3 | 0 4 5 | 23 |
U | 0-4 | 0 3 P | 24 |
V | 0-5 | 0 3 5 | 25 |
W | 0-6 | 0 3 4 | 26 |
X | 0-7 | 0 3 4 5 P | 27 |
Y | 0-8 | 0 2 P | 28 |
Z | 0-9 | 0 2 5 | 29 |
ESC | 0-9-7 | 0 2 4 | 2A |
' | 0-8-3 | 0 2 4 5 P | 2B |
% | 0-8-4 | 0 2 3 | 2C |
ENQ | 0-9-8-5 | 0 2 3 5 P | 2D |
ETX | 12-9-3 | 0 2 3 4 P | 2E |
HT | 12-9-5 | 0 2 3 4 5 | 2F |
0 | 0 | 0 1 P | 30 |
1 | 1 | 0 1 5 | 31 |
2 | 2 | 0 1 4 | 32 |
3 | 3 | 0 1 4 5 P | 33 |
4 | 4 | 0 1 3 | 34 |
5 | 5 | 0 1 3 5 P | 35 |
6 | 6 | 0 1 3 4 P | 36 |
7 | 7 | 0 1 3 4 5 | 37 |
8 | 8 | 0 1 2 | 38 |
9 | 9 | 0 1 2 5 P | 39 |
SYN | 9-2 | 0 1 2 4 P | 3A |
# | 8-3 | 0 1 2 4 5 | 3B |
@ | 8-4 | 0 1 2 3 P | 3C |
NAK | 9-8-5 | 0 1 2 3 5 | 3D |
EM | 11-9-8-1 | 0 1 2 3 4 | 3E |
DEL | 12-9-7 | 0 1 2 3 4 5 P | 3F |
ASCII, abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of technical limitations of computer systems at the time it was invented, ASCII has just 128 code points, of which only 95 are printable characters, which severely limited its scope. All modern computer systems instead use Unicode, which has millions of code points, but the first 128 of these are the same as the ASCII set.
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to graphical characters, especially the written characters of human language, allowing them to be stored, transmitted, and transformed using digital computers. The numerical values that make up a character encoding are known as "code points" and collectively comprise a "code space", a "code page", or a "character map".
In computing and telecommunication, a control character or non-printing character (NPC) is a code point in a character set, that does not represent a written symbol. They are used as in-band signaling to cause effects other than the addition of a symbol to the text. All other characters are mainly printing, printable, or graphic characters, except perhaps for the "space" character.
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code is an eight-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems. It descended from the code used with punched cards and the corresponding six-bit binary-coded decimal code used with most of IBM's computer peripherals of the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is supported by various non-IBM platforms, such as Fujitsu-Siemens' BS2000/OSD, OS-IV, MSP, and MSP-EX, the SDS Sigma series, Unisys VS/9, Unisys MCP and ICL VME.
The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971 and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text color on the original models, these terminals are informally known as green screen terminals. Unlike a character-oriented terminal, the 3270 minimizes the number of I/O interrupts required by transferring large blocks of data known as data streams, and uses a high speed proprietary communications interface, using coaxial cable.
A universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter is a computer hardware device for asynchronous serial communication in which the data format and transmission speeds are configurable. It sends data bits one by one, from the least significant to the most significant, framed by start and stop bits so that precise timing is handled by the communication channel. The electric signaling levels are handled by a driver circuit external to the UART. Two common signal levels are RS-232, a 12-volt system, and RS-485, a 5-volt system. Early teletypewriters used current loops.
In computing, a serial port is a serial communication interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one bit at a time. This is in contrast to a parallel port, which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in parallel. Throughout most of the history of personal computers, data has been transferred through serial ports to devices such as modems, terminals, various peripherals, and directly between computers.
The IBM 5100 Portable Computer is one of the first portable computers, introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM Personal Computer, and eight before the first successful IBM compatible portable computer, the Compaq Portable. It was the evolution of a prototype called the SCAMP that was developed at the IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center in 1973. Whether considered evolutionary from SCAMP or revolutionary, it still needed to be plugged into an electric socket.
The C0 and C1 control code or control character sets define control codes for use in text by computer systems that use ASCII and derivatives of ASCII. The codes represent additional information about the text, such as the position of a cursor, an instruction to start a new line, or a message that the text has been received.
The IBM 6580 Displaywriter System is a 16-bit microcomputer that was marketed and sold by IBM's Office Products Division primarily as a word processor. Announced in June 1980 and effectively withdrawn from marketing in July 1986, the system was sold with a 5 MHz Intel 8086, 128K to 448K of RAM, a swivel-mounted monochrome CRT monitor, a detached keyboard, a detached 8" floppy disk drive enclosure with one or two drives, and a detached daisy wheel printer, or Selectric typewriter printer. The primary operating system for the Displaywriter is IBM's internally developed word processing software titled "Textpack", but UCSD p-System, CP/M-86 and MS-DOS were also offered by IBM, Digital Research and CompuSystems, respectively.
The IBM 2741 is a printing computer terminal that was introduced in 1965. Compared to the teletypewriter machines that were commonly used as printing terminals at the time, the 2741 offers 50% higher speed, much higher quality printing, quieter operation, interchangeable type fonts, and both upper and lower case letters.
Binary Synchronous Communication is an IBM character-oriented, half-duplex link protocol, announced in 1967 after the introduction of System/360. It replaced the synchronous transmit-receive (STR) protocol used with second generation computers. The intent was that common link management rules could be used with three different character encodings for messages. Six-bit Transcode looked backwards to older systems; USASCII with 128 characters and EBCDIC with 256 characters looked forward. Transcode disappeared very quickly but the EBCDIC and USASCII dialects of Bisync continued in use.
The IBM 2780 and the IBM 3780 are devices developed by IBM to perform remote job entry (RJE) and other batch functions over telephone lines; they communicate with the mainframe via Binary Synchronous Communications and replaced older terminals using synchronous transmit-receive (STR). In addition, IBM has developed workstation programs for the 1130, 360/20, 2922, System/360 other than 360/20, System/370 and System/3.
A six-bit character code is a character encoding designed for use on computers with word lengths a multiple of 6. Six bits can only encode 64 distinct characters, so these codes generally include only the upper-case letters, the numerals, some punctuation characters, and sometimes control characters. The 7-track magnetic tape format was developed to store data in such codes, along with an additional parity bit.
Extended ASCII is a repertoire of character encodings that include the original 96 ASCII character set, plus up to 128 additional characters. There is no formal definition of "extended ASCII", and even use of the term is sometimes criticized, because it can be mistakenly interpreted to mean that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) had updated its ANSI X3.4-1986 standard to include more characters, or that the term identifies a single unambiguous encoding, neither of which is the case.
BCD, also called alphanumeric BCD, alphameric BCD, BCD Interchange Code, or BCDIC, is a family of representations of numerals, uppercase Latin letters, and some special and control characters as six-bit character codes.
The Singer System Ten was a small-business computer manufactured by the Singer Corporation. The System Ten, introduced in 1970, featured an early form of logical partitioning. The System Ten was a character-oriented computer, using 6-bit BCD characters and decimal arithmetic.
270x is a generic name for a family of IBM non-programmable communications controllers used with System/360 and System/370 computers.
Synchronous transmit-receive (STR) was an early IBM character-oriented communications protocol which preceded Bisync. STR was point-to-point only, and employed a four-of-eight transmission code, communicating at up to 5100 characters per second over half-duplex or full-duplex communication lines.
Code page 37, known as "USA/Canada - CECP", is an EBCDIC code page used on IBM mainframes. It encodes the ISO/IEC 8859-1 repertoire of graphic characters.