On 20 Jul 2001, at 11:53, Fergal Suipeil wrote:

>It's a form of weak proprietary encryption called EBCDIC.

My memory of it is that it was a numeric reflection of a
storage medium based on cutting little rectangles in roughly
3"x7" pieces of cardboard, and sorta made sense in that context.
My High School (FAAHS am Main) had access to a corporate computer
(initially with 8K, replaced by a 32K monster), but not the
room with the corporate keypunch, so I've had the thrill of fixing
bugs in a Fortran deck by cutting little triangles in replacement
blank cards with an Exacto knife.
                                          -Kary