Hello mark,

On Saturday June 27 2020 12:32, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>> Accident or intent, I consider it wrong.

 ml> that's you... many others don't... especially when they have valid
 ml> glyphs that one may want to use in their messages or screen
 ml> drawings...

Valid glyphs?

 MvdV>> The ASCII specification reserves the values 00-1F as control
 MvdV>> codes, not printable characters.

 ml> then why do they have printable glyphs?

They do not. Not in the ASCII specification: http://ascii-table.com/

No printable glyphs in the range 00-1F. Only documented control codes. The
"musical note" as you call it, is hex 0E, documented as SO or Shift Out.

At best these glyphs are an undocumented feature of the original IBM PC. Ask
IBM why they did that.

 MvdV>> Using any ASCII control codes other than 00, 01, 0A or 0D in the
 MvdV>> text part of Fidonet messages may result in unpredictable
 MvdV>> behaviour. Even in an environment where it results in a printable
 MvdV>> character, one can not be sure what image it will display. It may
 MvdV>> look very different on a non IBM clone...

 ml> all valid points but they have been being used in text messages and
 ml> screen drawings for 30+ years... i was using them on RIME/PCRelay
 ml> before i ever heard about fidonet ;)

The world is not static, things change. Many things that looked like a good
idea 30+ years ago turn out to be not such good ideas today. I too have used
undocumented features 30+ years ago before I heard of Fidonet. With the coming
of Fidonet came the realisation that using undocumentd features locally on
one's own system or even in a private network is one thing. But...

Using undocumented features in a global network is bad practise for the simple
reason that you never know what it will do at the other end.


Cheers, Michiel

--- GoldED+/W32-MSVC 1.1.5-b20170303