Re: lower case

On Saturday, November 12, 2022 at 4:22:00 AM UTC-8, Andy Walker wrote:


(snip)


> Eg, those of us who had Flexowriters [essentially electric typewriters
> with paper tape facilities] expected to write programs in the same way
> that we typed letters. Not just the programs, we were also early into
> "word processing", and I remember the pleasure we got when someone
> found out how to make the Flexowriter half space, so that it became
> possible to "justify" lines without the jarring switch from single to
> double spacing towards the end of most lines, but could instead go to
> one-and-a-half spacing.


I used Wylbur and the IBM 2741 terminal pretty far back.


The 2741 uses the IBM Selectric typewriter as its print mechanism, so
is naturally lower case. Wylbur has a mode where all input data is converted
to upper case (for programs), and a mode when it isn't (for letter writing).


Wylbur does have the justify command for letters, but no half spacing.


Systems I remember had the 1403 line printers set to map lower case
to upper case (except with the TN print train), which made it harder to
figure out when you got lower case into your programs or JCL.


As for C, it seems that predecessor B uses lower case for (reserved)
keywords. I don't see in the manual anything about the case of user
identifiers, and especially if they are case sensitive.
[We used 2741 terminals with TSS/360 also. I think it did something
similar, normally mapping lower to upper case. -John]

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