Government Sees Little Impact in Standard Code Adoption.

This article reports that a July letter from a federal government official concerning the lack of support in the computer industry for the standard code of information interchange has produced more speculation over the intent of the letter, with its supporting documents, than concern about the content of the letter itself. Harry S. White, associate director of ADP standards in the National Bureau of Standards, sent out a memo to directors of university and college computer centers on July 5, 1972. After discussing the importance of computers to society and the large investment in them by scientific and business endeavors, the memo cites a major problem in the use of computer technology. The character code controversy is a long-standing one in the computer industry, and few active standards workers are willing to go on record over White's letter. Officials of International Business Machines Corp. do not comment on the issue, so is that of the Business Equipment Manufacturers Association, official secretariat for computer standards work in the United States before proposals go to ANSI for approval.