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BLISS

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  BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-05 16:10 +0100
    Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-05 15:25 +0000
    Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-05 12:25 -0400
      Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-05 18:41 +0100
    Re: BLISS Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> - 2016-06-05 12:20 -0700
      Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-05 23:08 +0100
        Re: BLISS Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-06-06 07:38 +0200
          Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-06 09:33 +0100
            Re: BLISS Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-06-06 13:05 +0200
              Re: BLISS jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-06-06 13:35 +0000
              Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-06 14:54 +0100
                Re: BLISS Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> - 2016-06-06 08:03 -0700
                  Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-06 16:07 +0100
                    Re: BLISS Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> - 2016-06-06 08:11 -0700
                      Re: BLISS jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-06-07 12:11 +0000
                    Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-06-08 02:31 -0700
                      Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 10:26 +0000
                      Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 12:01 +0100
                  Re: BLISS scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-06-06 16:48 +0000
                  Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-07 16:14 -0400
        Re: BLISS JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2016-06-06 14:16 -0500
    Re: BLISS jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-06-06 13:35 +0000
    Re: BLISS usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2016-06-07 21:04 +0000
      Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-07 22:30 +0000
        Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 10:23 +0100
          Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 10:24 +0000
        Re: BLISS jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-06-08 12:09 +0000
          Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 12:27 +0000
          Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-06-08 07:48 -0700
            Re: BLISS Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-06-08 15:21 +0000
            Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-08 11:50 -0400
              Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-06-08 09:32 -0700
              Re: BLISS - broken bar Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2016-06-08 15:35 -0400
                Re: BLISS - broken bar Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-09 10:52 -0400
                Re: BLISS - broken bar Joe Makowiec <makowiec@invalid.invalid> - 2016-06-09 20:11 +0000
                  Re: BLISS - broken bar Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-10 06:45 -0400
            Re: BLISS jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-06-09 12:25 +0000
              Re: BLISS Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2016-06-09 10:23 -0500
                Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-06-09 08:49 -0700
              Re: BLISS "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-06-09 20:07 -0400
                Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-06-09 19:11 -0700
                  Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-06-09 19:16 -0700
        Re: BLISS "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-06-11 10:09 -0500
          Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-11 16:05 +0000
            Re: BLISS Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-06-11 19:27 +0100
              Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-11 18:46 +0000
            Re: BLISS "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-06-12 09:45 -0500
      Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 10:21 +0100
      Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-08 07:26 -0400
        Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 11:33 +0000
          Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 13:30 +0100
            Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 14:07 +0000
              Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 15:39 +0100
                Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-06-08 07:56 -0700
                  Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-08 11:50 -0400
                Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 15:27 +0000
                Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-08 11:50 -0400
                  Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 17:13 +0100
                  Re: BLISS mausg@mail.com - 2016-06-09 09:37 +0000
                    Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-09 10:52 -0400
                Re: BLISS Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> - 2016-06-28 18:53 -0400
                  Re: BLISS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-28 19:47 -0400
                    Re: BLISS "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-06-28 20:00 -0400
                      Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-29 09:19 +0100
                        Re: BLISS "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-06-29 04:43 -0400
                  Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-29 09:17 +0100
                    Re: BLISS Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-07-12 17:07 -0700
                      Re: BLISS mausg@mail.com - 2016-07-13 14:22 +0000
                        Re: BLISS mausg@mail.com - 2016-07-13 14:41 +0000
                          Re: BLISS Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-07-13 16:50 +0100
                            Re: BLISS mausg@mail.com - 2016-07-13 19:24 +0000
                              Re: BLISS Alfred Falk <falk@arc.ab.ca> - 2016-07-13 23:13 +0000
                            Re: BLISS Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2016-07-14 06:06 +0100
                              Re: BLISS Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-07-14 09:12 +0100
              Re: BLISS Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-06-08 15:42 +0100
                Re: BLISS Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-06-08 15:21 +0000
                  Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 16:44 +0100
                  Re: BLISS "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-06-11 10:19 -0500
                    Re: BLISS Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-06-13 16:20 +0000
                Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 15:28 +0000
          Re: BLISS Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-06-08 14:40 +0100
            Re: BLISS Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2016-06-08 14:08 +0000
            Re: BLISS Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> - 2016-07-12 19:15 -0400
              Re: BLISS David Wade <dave.g4ugm@gmail.com> - 2016-07-13 17:39 +0100
        Re: BLISS "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2016-06-08 13:29 +0100

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#164695

On Sun, 5 Jun 2016 23:08:04 +0100, "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339"
<no.spam@thank.you.invalid> wrote:

>"Al Kossow" <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote in message 
>news:nj1u1t$oki$1@dont-email.me...
>> On 6/5/16 8:10 AM, gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339 wrote:
>>> Inspired by the PL/I thread, I've had a look at BLISS for the first time.
>>>
>>
>> ELUDOM barada nikto
>
>Eh?  Wot?
>

A slight alteration of safeword from the original 'The Day The Earth
Stood Still'.

-- 
JimP.

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#164666

gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339 wrote:
> Inspired by the PL/I thread, I've had a look at BLISS for the first time.
>
> Interesting the dot notation to cause a variable name dereference in sharp
> contrast to the C technique of using "&" to force a reference!
>
> I wonder how many bugs came about in BLISS programs because of
> the unnatural need to use dot compared to other languages?

Think about the lousy listing quality and you'll have a good first
estimate.

/BAH

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#164767

On Sun, 5 Jun 2016 16:10:31 +0100, "gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339"
<no.spam@thank.you.invalid> wrote:
>Inspired by the PL/I thread, I've had a look at BLISS for the first time.
>
>Interesting the dot notation to cause a variable name dereference in sharp
>contrast to the C technique of using "&" to force a reference!

Except that C doesn't require "&" in an assignment statement, so there still is
an l-value/r-value dichotomy.


>I wonder how many bugs came about in BLISS programs because of
>the unnatural need to use dot compared to other languages?

One gets used to it very quickly when working with the code all day.
It did result in an interesting bug once.

A program that had been working for years started failing one day with a page
fault, and I quickly determined that what had changed was the KL had received a
microcode update.  I scrambled to find another machine that hadn't yet been
upgraded to determine how it had worked previously.  I discovered there was a
missing dot operator, and consequently the pointer to a field specified a
non-existant page.  Under the old microcode, the write operation triggered the
creation of a page, the page map was duly updated, and the value written to an
otherwise empty page.  When the program subsequently went to read said value
with the same pointer, there it was -- right where it had been written.
I don't remember the reason for the microcode change, but now the same write
request caused a page fault.  Anyway, I added the missing dot to the pointer
construction and all was right with the world again.

The big problem with the dot operator is that a period does not have a lot of
"visual redundancy," if you will.  It is at the mercy of fading ink ribbons,
coffee stains, blurry CRT screens, etc.  I don't know what the better choice
would have been, but I wish someone had found it.

Otherwise, I like the clear line that BLISS draws between l-values and r-values.

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#164768

On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:04:03 +0000, Questor wrote:

> The big problem with the dot operator is that a period does not have a
> lot of "visual redundancy," if you will.  It is at the mercy of fading
> ink ribbons, coffee stains, blurry CRT screens, etc.  I don't know what
> the better choice would have been, but I wish someone had found it.

C uses *, but I preferred the one used by its predecessor, BCPL. That was 
'!'.

-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#164782

"Bob Eager" <news0006@eager.cx> wrote in message 
news:drp088Fc6elU21@mid.individual.net...
> On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:04:03 +0000, Questor wrote:
>
>> The big problem with the dot operator is that a period does not have a
>> lot of "visual redundancy," if you will.  It is at the mercy of fading
>> ink ribbons, coffee stains, blurry CRT screens, etc.  I don't know what
>> the better choice would have been, but I wish someone had found it.
>
> C uses *, but I preferred the one used by its predecessor, BCPL. That was
> '!'.

Yes, but only when you know that already you have a pointer (better not say
reference because of C++ usage)

For normal assignement, C has nothing.

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#164784

On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 10:23:33 +0100, gareth G4SDW GQRP #3339 wrote:

> "Bob Eager" <news0006@eager.cx> wrote in message
> news:drp088Fc6elU21@mid.individual.net...
>> On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:04:03 +0000, Questor wrote:
>>
>>> The big problem with the dot operator is that a period does not have a
>>> lot of "visual redundancy," if you will.  It is at the mercy of fading
>>> ink ribbons, coffee stains, blurry CRT screens, etc.  I don't know
>>> what the better choice would have been, but I wish someone had found
>>> it.
>>
>> C uses *, but I preferred the one used by its predecessor, BCPL. That
>> was '!'.
> 
> Yes, but only when you know that already you have a pointer (better not
> say reference because of C++ usage)
> 
> For normal assignement, C has nothing.

Yes, I agree. I just think that aesthetically and practically, ! would 
not be a bad choice.




-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#164792

Bob Eager wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:04:03 +0000, Questor wrote:
>
>> The big problem with the dot operator is that a period does not have a
>> lot of "visual redundancy," if you will.  It is at the mercy of fading
>> ink ribbons, coffee stains, blurry CRT screens, etc.  I don't know what
>> the better choice would have been, but I wish someone had found it.
>
> C uses *, but I preferred the one used by its predecessor, BCPL. That was
> '!'.
>
I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.

/BAH

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#164797

On Wed, 08 Jun 2016 12:09:49 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

> Bob Eager wrote:
>> On Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:04:03 +0000, Questor wrote:
>>
>>> The big problem with the dot operator is that a period does not have a
>>> lot of "visual redundancy," if you will.  It is at the mercy of fading
>>> ink ribbons, coffee stains, blurry CRT screens, etc.  I don't know
>>> what the better choice would have been, but I wish someone had found
>>> it.
>>
>> C uses *, but I preferred the one used by its predecessor, BCPL. That
>> was '!'.
>>
> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a
> |.

I don't think it's that bad; I never had a problem with distinguishing 
the two in BCPL, and we had some pretty bad printers!

Also, ! would be monadic, and if used I would guess that | would be 
diadic.



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#164805

On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 6:07:25 AM UTC-6, jmfbahciv wrote:

> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.

Not only that, but officially, ! _is_ the EBCDIC vertical bar, and ^ is the 
EBCDIC logical not symbol (¬).

These characters, rather than the obvious choices of | and ~ in ASCII (| in 
ASCII was originally a _broken_ vertical bar just so as to reinforce the 
distinction), were chosen at the insistence of PL/I programmers, because 
otherwise PL/I programs, requiring those two symbols, could not be entered from 
upper-case only ASCII input devices.

Of course, this was a pain for people using ASCII terminals to access EBCDIC 
mainframes, and wanting to enter text documents containing exclamation marks. 
Of course, many sites would let you choose your translate table from 
alternatives.

John Savard

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#164809

On 2016-06-08, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 6:07:25 AM UTC-6, jmfbahciv wrote:
>
>> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.
>
> Not only that, but officially, ! _is_ the EBCDIC vertical bar, and ^ is the 
> EBCDIC logical not symbol (¬).
>
> These characters, rather than the obvious choices of | and ~ in ASCII (| in 
> ASCII was originally a _broken_ vertical bar just so as to reinforce the 
> distinction), were chosen at the insistence of PL/I programmers, because 
> otherwise PL/I programs, requiring those two symbols, could not be entered
> from upper-case only ASCII input devices.
>
> Of course, this was a pain for people using ASCII terminals to access EBCDIC 
> mainframes, and wanting to enter text documents containing exclamation marks. 
> Of course, many sites would let you choose your translate table from 
> alternatives.

Yes, I recall when a couple of EBCDIC code points (0x4f, formerly '|',
and 0x5a, formerly '!') went up for grabs.  It undermined my faith in
the stability of the character set.  Fortunately, at the time I was
moving to machines that used ASCII, which has proven to be more stable.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

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#164818

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 6:07:25 AM UTC-6, jmfbahciv wrote:
> 
>> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.
> 
> Not only that, but officially, ! _is_ the EBCDIC vertical bar, and ^ is the 
> EBCDIC logical not symbol (¬).
> 
> These characters, rather than the obvious choices of | and ~ in ASCII (| in 
> ASCII was originally a _broken_ vertical bar 

Another stupid question: what was the purpose of the broken vertical bar? 
The solid bar was logical "or", so that seems useful.

just so as to reinforce the 
> distinction), were chosen at the insistence of PL/I programmers, because 
> otherwise PL/I programs, requiring those two symbols, could not be entered from 
> upper-case only ASCII input devices.
> 
> Of course, this was a pain for people using ASCII terminals to access EBCDIC 
> mainframes, and wanting to enter text documents containing exclamation marks. 
> Of course, many sites would let you choose your translate table from 
> alternatives.
> 
> John Savard
> 



-- 
Pete

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#164820

On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 9:50:35 AM UTC-6, Peter Flass wrote:
> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> > On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 6:07:25 AM UTC-6, jmfbahciv wrote:
> > 
> >> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.
> > 
> > Not only that, but officially, ! _is_ the EBCDIC vertical bar, and ^ is the 
> > EBCDIC logical not symbol (¬).
> > 
> > These characters, rather than the obvious choices of | and ~ in ASCII (| in 
> > ASCII was originally a _broken_ vertical bar 
> 
> Another stupid question: what was the purpose of the broken vertical bar? 
> The solid bar was logical "or", so that seems useful.

Well, it was originally not a broken vertical bar when initially put in ASCII. The designers of the lowercase extension to ASCII intended for it to be a 
logical "or".

But when the PL/I decree that the logical "or" must be in the UC-only subset 
came along, then it had to be changed so as not to be confused with the real 
logical "or", which now was the exclamation mark.

Hence, the bar was broken - since ASCII terminals already existed that had a 
bar at that code point, it was too late to replace it by a completely different 
character.

John Savard

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#164828 — Re: BLISS - broken bar

Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:

> Another stupid question: what was the purpose of the broken vertical
> bar?  The solid bar was logical "or", so that seems useful.

To engender confusion?

Here's the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_bar#Solid_vertical_bar_vs_broken_bar

Solid vertical bar vs broken bar

The broken bar (¦) in computing was historically an allograph of the
vertical bar and was perceived so before a broad implementation of
extended ASCII character sets (namely, ISO/IEC 8859 series), which did
distinguish both. Since the 1990s, it is considered a separate
character, not a part of ASCII, and also termed "parted rule" in Unicode
documentation. But in many fonts, the glyph used for the vertical bar
looks exactly like a broken bar.[3]

The broken bar is encoded in Unicode at U+00A6 ¦ BROKEN BAR (166decimal
· HTML &#166; · &brvbar;).

Due to historical confusion between the two, computer keyboards and
displays may not clearly or consistently differentiate them:

    The typical keyboard layout used in the United Kingdom features
    separate keys for vertical bar and broken bar; however, in many
    fonts the vertical bar key produces a broken-bar symbol.[4][5] Some
    keyboard drivers map the broken bar key to the vertical bar, and the
    vertical bar key, shared with the grave accent (`), generates the
    broken bar when pressed in combination with AltGr.  The ANSI QWERTY
    keyboard has only a broken bar key, producing a vertical bar
    character.  The French AZERTY keyboard has a key which always
    produces a vertical bar character, but is represented on the key
    itself as a broken bar. The same holds for many German QWERTZ
    keyboards, where the “> < |” key in the lower left is labelled “> <
    ¦” but always produces a vertical bar character.

The broken bar has hardly any practical application and does not appear
to have any clearly identified uses distinct from the vertical bar.[6]
In non-computing use — for example in mathematics, physics and general
typography — the broken bar is not an acceptable substitute for the
vertical bar. Aforementioned usages in computing rely on the abstract
character with code point 124 (0x7C) in ASCII (or ASCII compatible code
page) and do not depend on visual rendering, which actually may be a
broken bar in some environments.

Some variants of the EBCDIC family of code pages such as EBCDIC 500
distinguished the broken bar from the solid vertical bar.[citation
needed]


Best part:
US keyboards show a picture of a broken bar,
but you get a solid bar.  Amazing.


-- 
Dan Espen

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#164848 — Re: BLISS - broken bar

Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> wrote:
> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
> 
>> Another stupid question: what was the purpose of the broken vertical
>> bar?  The solid bar was logical "or", so that seems useful.
> 
> To engender confusion?
> 
> Here's the Wikipedia page:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_bar#Solid_vertical_bar_vs_broken_bar

Amazing the stuff you can find on Wikipedia!

> 
> Solid vertical bar vs broken bar
> 
> The broken bar (¦) in computing was historically an allograph of the
> vertical bar and was perceived so before a broad implementation of
> extended ASCII character sets (namely, ISO/IEC 8859 series), which did
> distinguish both. Since the 1990s, it is considered a separate
> character, not a part of ASCII, and also termed "parted rule" in Unicode
> documentation. But in many fonts, the glyph used for the vertical bar
> looks exactly like a broken bar.[3]
> 
> The broken bar is encoded in Unicode at U+00A6 ¦ BROKEN BAR (166decimal
> · HTML &#166; · &brvbar;).
> 
> Due to historical confusion between the two, computer keyboards and
> displays may not clearly or consistently differentiate them:
> 
>     The typical keyboard layout used in the United Kingdom features
>     separate keys for vertical bar and broken bar; however, in many
>     fonts the vertical bar key produces a broken-bar symbol.[4][5] Some
>     keyboard drivers map the broken bar key to the vertical bar, and the
>     vertical bar key, shared with the grave accent (`), generates the
>     broken bar when pressed in combination with AltGr.  The ANSI QWERTY
>     keyboard has only a broken bar key, producing a vertical bar
>     character.  The French AZERTY keyboard has a key which always
>     produces a vertical bar character, but is represented on the key
>     itself as a broken bar. The same holds for many German QWERTZ
>     keyboards, where the “> < |” key in the lower left is labelled “> <
>     ¦” but always produces a vertical bar character.
> 
> The broken bar has hardly any practical application and does not appear
> to have any clearly identified uses distinct from the vertical bar.[6]
> In non-computing use — for example in mathematics, physics and general
> typography — the broken bar is not an acceptable substitute for the
> vertical bar. Aforementioned usages in computing rely on the abstract
> character with code point 124 (0x7C) in ASCII (or ASCII compatible code
> page) and do not depend on visual rendering, which actually may be a
> broken bar in some environments.
> 
> Some variants of the EBCDIC family of code pages such as EBCDIC 500
> distinguished the broken bar from the solid vertical bar.[citation
> needed]
> 
> 
> Best part:
> US keyboards show a picture of a broken bar,
> but you get a solid bar.  Amazing.
> 
> 



-- 
Pete

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#164860 — Re: BLISS - broken bar

On 08 Jun 2016 in alt.folklore.computers, Dan Espen wrote:

> US keyboards show a picture of a broken bar,
> but you get a solid bar.  Amazing.

That depends on the keyboard.  At the moment, I'm sitting at an HP USA 
keyboard, and it has a solid bar.  I thought it depended on the font, 
too, but I just checked the fonts on my computer (Win 7, fonts from 
Microsoft, Adobe, Corel and a couple of other sources), and they're all 
solid bar.

-- 
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

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#164873 — Re: BLISS - broken bar

Joe Makowiec <makowiec@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 08 Jun 2016 in alt.folklore.computers, Dan Espen wrote:
> 
>> US keyboards show a picture of a broken bar,
>> but you get a solid bar.  Amazing.
> 
> That depends on the keyboard.  At the moment, I'm sitting at an HP USA 
> keyboard, and it has a solid bar.  I thought it depended on the font, 
> too, but I just checked the fonts on my computer (Win 7, fonts from 
> Microsoft, Adobe, Corel and a couple of other sources), and they're all 
> solid bar.
> 

iPad has solid bar, no broken bar.

-- 
Pete

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#164845

Quadibloc wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 6:07:25 AM UTC-6, jmfbahciv wrote:
>
>> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.
>
> Not only that, but officially, ! _is_ the EBCDIC vertical bar, and ^ is the
> EBCDIC logical not symbol (¬).
>
> These characters, rather than the obvious choices of | and ~ in ASCII (| in
> ASCII was originally a _broken_ vertical bar just so as to reinforce the
> distinction), were chosen at the insistence of PL/I programmers, because
> otherwise PL/I programs, requiring those two symbols, could not be entered
from
> upper-case only ASCII input devices.
>
> Of course, this was a pain for people using ASCII terminals to access EBCDIC
> mainframes, and wanting to enter text documents containing exclamation
marks.
> Of course, many sites would let you choose your translate table from
> alternatives.

I don't remember ever seeing a broken bar.  From the other posts, I
should be able to find it on my keyboard but I can't see it.

/BAH

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#164849

On 6/9/2016 7:25 AM, jmfbahciv wrote:
> Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 6:07:25 AM UTC-6, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>
>>> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.
>>
>> Not only that, but officially, ! _is_ the EBCDIC vertical bar, and ^ is the
>> EBCDIC logical not symbol (¬).
>>
>> These characters, rather than the obvious choices of | and ~ in ASCII (| in
>> ASCII was originally a _broken_ vertical bar just so as to reinforce the
>> distinction), were chosen at the insistence of PL/I programmers, because
>> otherwise PL/I programs, requiring those two symbols, could not be entered
> from
>> upper-case only ASCII input devices.
>>
>> Of course, this was a pain for people using ASCII terminals to access EBCDIC
>> mainframes, and wanting to enter text documents containing exclamation
> marks.
>> Of course, many sites would let you choose your translate table from
>> alternatives.
>
> I don't remember ever seeing a broken bar.  From the other posts, I
> should be able to find it on my keyboard but I can't see it.
>

It's not on your keyboard. There's a solid bar (shift-\) on a Mac 
keyboard. On a PC keyboard, the same key is likely marked as a broken 
bar, even though it actually produces a solid bar. Broken bar "¦" is 
Unicode U+00A6 (I copied & pasted that), how you'd type it (you 
probably wouldn't) depends on your computer.

As Dan said, confusion reigns. I didn't realize the two were distinct 
characters, just assumed it was represented with a gap in it to 
differentiate it from a vertical line (alt-179) or maybe an artifact 
of computing history akin to slashed 0 or O.

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#164851

On Thursday, June 9, 2016 at 9:24:03 AM UTC-6, Dave Garland wrote:

> As Dan said, confusion reigns. I didn't realize the two were distinct 
> characters, just assumed it was represented with a gap in it to 
> differentiate it from a vertical line (alt-179) or maybe an artifact 
> of computing history akin to slashed 0 or O.

They're two distinct characters _now_.

I'm trying to get references and dates for the history.

Basically, when lowercase ASCII was first designed, | and ~ were put in to 
serve as "logical OR" and "logical NOT". The latter looks like a mathematical 
symbol for NOT, even if it is different from the IBM keypunch NOT symbol.

When ANSI was working on a standard punched card representation for ASCII, a 
representative from SHARE presented a requirement that characters having the 
punched card codes of EBCDIC | and ¬ be in the basic uppercase-only part of 
ASCII. (The standard is x3.26-1970, so ASCII was around for quite some time 
before it came out, and lots of ASCII-using computers had rather different 
punched card codes.)

This meant those two characters, | and ~ in ASCII, couldn't serve that purpose.

So, instead, it was decreed that ! and ^ in ASCII would have the punched card 
codes for | and ¬ in EBCDIC.

To help remind people that they needed to use ! and not | for logical OR in 
writing PL/I programs, a lot of ASCII terminals, after the release of the 
punched card code standard, started printing ASCII | with the graphic ¦.

Currently, the graphic ¦ has its own distinct code in Unicode, distinct from |. 
Which is fine, but I don't see the point myself of putting it in 8859-1 so that 
it's in the basic 256-bit subset, because, yes, it isn't much use.

So, yes, it _is_ an artifact of computer history.

John Savard

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#164866

In article <PM000534D74DAFC258@aca40f3b.ipt.aol.com>, See.above@aol.com 
says...
> 
> Quadibloc wrote:
> > On Wednesday, June 8, 2016 at 6:07:25 AM UTC-6, jmfbahciv wrote:
> >
> >> I would hate that, too; the character is difficult to distinguish from a |.
> >
> > Not only that, but officially, ! _is_ the EBCDIC vertical bar, and ^ is the
> > EBCDIC logical not symbol (¬).
> >
> > These characters, rather than the obvious choices of | and ~ in ASCII (| in
> > ASCII was originally a _broken_ vertical bar just so as to reinforce the
> > distinction), were chosen at the insistence of PL/I programmers, because
> > otherwise PL/I programs, requiring those two symbols, could not be entered
> from
> > upper-case only ASCII input devices.
> >
> > Of course, this was a pain for people using ASCII terminals to access EBCDIC
> > mainframes, and wanting to enter text documents containing exclamation
> marks.
> > Of course, many sites would let you choose your translate table from
> > alternatives.
> 
> I don't remember ever seeing a broken bar.  From the other posts, I
> should be able to find it on my keyboard but I can't see it.
> 
> /BAH

Might have been an IBM thing.  Here's a decent shot of a 3270 keyboard 
-- you can see it clearly.

<https://flic.kr/p/Fp9GnZ>

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