Second, it was difficult to manipulate individual characters within a word in a portable fashion. This led to a great deal of shifting and masking code using non-standard, vendor-specific, features. The fact that character sets varied between machines also complicated the issue.
Secondly, changing individual characters within words on different systems was challenging. As a result, significant rearrangements and the use of non-standard, vendor-specific features were necessary for masking codes. Furthermore, the variability in character sets across various machines made the situation more complex.