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Remember that we use columnar placement for indicating purpose. Originally these specs were designed for 80 or 96 column paper punch cards, and to be run through a card reader. The abilities of the equipment were quite limited. Column 6 was reserved to tell us what was going to follow in the card.

Bruce Vining wrote:
I'm just guessing, but evidently someone in the past thought some type of identifier was needed (most forms do have them when looking at RPG, Sort, WSU, etc if memory serves) and 'A' was picked perhaps as a good starting point.

Some quick testing though shows that not only is the 'A' optional, but you can just as easily use:

? R RECORD > TEXT 50
which compiles just fine... So maybe 'A' is for 'Anything can go here'?
A bit more seriously (but still not answering your question) is that the 'A' (or a blank) does at least give the prompter a clue as to what you're trying to enter with utilities such as SEU.

Bruce Vining




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05/08/2007 08:00 PM
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Subject
A Spec?






David may shoot me since this is kinda not on topic, but a student in one of
my wifes classes asked why for files (PF/LF/DSPF/PRTF) the "A' was used in
column 6?

Told them neither of us knew (never thought about it) but I'd find
out.......


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