Augmented ASCII standard - comments solicited
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review · 1977
Twenty five additional controls are being standardized for use with the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) in 7-bit and 8-bit environments. The draft proposed American National Standard entitled Additional Controls for Use with ASCII is out for public comment as BSR X3.64. The primary thrust of the standard is to encode the control functions needed by the current technology of two-dimensional character-imaging input-output devices, such as cathode ray tube terminals. The ANSI X3 Technical Subcommittee X3L2, Coding and Character Sets, has been working on the standard since 1969. It is a comprehensive standard which should standardize information interchange for this decade in a manner similar to that provided by ASCII in the last decade. The standard uses a multiple character structure similar to an Escape Sequence to obtain 78 distinct functions. Furthermore, it uses a uniform method for representing both numeric and selective parameters to indicate dimensional quantities and to obtain 88 more sub-functions. Finally, 23 modes alter the interpretation of some of the functions. The types of controls include editing functions, formatting, and the specification and control of input areas, as well as certain status setting and interrogation functions, mode selection and typesetting composition functions. The standard does not contain any network or data transmission controls. The Standard is open ended so that more controls can be included in future revisions. Furthermore, a conforming implementor is provided with a means of implementing some so-called private, non-standard functions as well. As with ASCII it is not expected that implementors will implement all of the functions in the standard. A compatible subset of this dpANS was approved in June 1976 by the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA). It is entitled ECMA-48 Additional Controls for Character-imaging I/O Devices.