DOS ain't dead

mainframe EBCDIC FAT (Announce)

posted by rmcconne, 23.07.2024, 21:49

> So is it possible to port msdos to an IBM mainframe?
>
> Obviously it has a different instruction set. S/370 etc. So since MS-DOS
> was written in 8086 assembler it needs to be rewritten. Language could
> potentially be anything. CP/M was written in PL/M.
>
> I chose C.
>
> But the FAT file system is the same. Except the mainframe uses EBCDIC
> normally. Can the FAT filesystem even work on EBCDIC?

The EBCDIC character coding is only used at the Human-machine interface, just as ASCII, code pages, UTF or Baudot would be used. Behind that it is just bits and bytes which the machine can interpret. The real trick will be to find editors that work on EBCDIC and compilers that can read it.

It has been a long time, but I can recall seeing programs that would translate EBCDIC coded text into ASCII, and vice versa. It's quite simple to do, not at all like translating between two human languages.

Bob

Complete thread:

• mainframe EBCDIC FAT - kerravon, 23.07.2024, 16:01 (Announce)
  • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - mbbrutman, 23.07.2024, 18:12
  • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - glennmcc, 23.07.2024, 18:29
    • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - kerravon, 24.07.2024, 01:22
      • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - glennmcc, 24.07.2024, 04:00
        • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - kerravon, 24.07.2024, 07:51
          • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - glennmcc, 26.07.2024, 19:27
            • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - kerravon, 29.07.2024, 04:51
  • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - rmcconne, 23.07.2024, 21:49
    • mainframe EBCDIC FAT - kerravon, 24.07.2024, 01:36