GE 235 System Manual page 66

This i s a significant feature because tapeswrittenby the GE-235 may be read by another system's
tape unit, and, tapes prepared by other units can be read by the GE-235 system. The alphanumeric
"962" exists in memory a s three BCD characters, a s follows:
B
6 2
Binary Coded Decimal Memory Format
When written on magnetic tape these characters appear a s three 6-bit characters accompanied by
a parity bit, as:
Tape movement
PARITY (EVEN)
{
ZONE BITS
t
NUMERIC
BITS
Binary Format
In the binary format, the word in memory is written a s four magnetic tape positions: three tape
characters a s in the BCD format, and afourth character containing two bits of the data word. The
remaining tape bits of this fourth position contain zeros which a r e automatically inserted when
recording on tape and ignored when reading from tape.
As an illustration of the appearance of a binary word on tape, the decimal number 262243 appears
in memory and on Magnetic Tape a s follows:
VII- 4