* Originally By: Leonard Erickson
 * Originally To: Lodewijk Otto
 * Originally Re: Character sets (ASCII variants)
 * Original Date: 13 Feb 98  09:51
 * Original Area: FTSC-Public
 * Forwarded by : Blue Wave/DOS v2.30

 -=> Quoting Lodewijk Otto to Leonard Erickson <=-

 LO> * Quoting a message of Mon 09-Feb-1998
 
 LO> It resembles too much the "you are not allowed
 LO> to use non-ASCII character"-rule, where the argument is found in the
 LO> (supposedly) odd behaviour of non-IBM pc's. A situation that until
 
 LE> That rule is based on a situatin I run into *daily* on the
 LE> Internet. For example, when using a PC with CGA or Herc, you
 LE> *can't* run any codepage other than 437. So stuff using some
 LE> characters from cp850 is junk. Worse, folks using ISO Latin-1,
 LE> *always* come across as junk. 

 LO> Your machine doesn't crash at all, I suppose. The messages are just
 LO> not very readable, allthough one can exaggarate this phenomenon.
 LO> Reading latin-1 stuff with code page 437 doesn't do too much, because
 LO> most writing (most of the characters that is) is still in plain ASCII. 
 LE> That's *6* character sets. cp437, cp850, ISO 8859-1, Mac QuickDraw,
 LE> M100 and DEC multinational. I'll be posting some tables in a few
 LE> minutes. 

 LO> Still the ASCII part is the same in all tables. In my eyes not much to
 LO> worry about. At least it's not EBCDIC :)) 

Even "ASCII" has national variants! And we *do* run into it from time
to time in the echoes.

 LE> You gonna teach them to use the new hardware and help convert all
 LE> their old files over? 

 LE> But the charset stuff is not something handled that easily.

 LO> If we stick to ASCII, it will not be necessary.

There are "national" variants on the 7-bit ASCII that replace some of
the "symbol" characters with various letters.

# is    number sign             in ISO 2, 6, 10, 11, 16, 21 and 60
# is    Pounds Sterling         in ISO 4, 15, 17, and 69
# is    section                 in ISO 61
$ is    sol                     in ISO 2, 10, and 11
$ is    dollars                 in ISO 4, 6, 15, 16, 17, 21, 60, 61,
                                       and 69
{at} is    at sign                 in ISO 2, 4, 6, 10, 60 and 61
{at} is    E acute                 in ISO 11
{at} is    section                 in ISO 15, 16, 17 and  21
{at} is    a grave                 in ISO 69
[ is    left square bracket     in ISO 2, 4 and 6
[ is    A diaresis              in ISO 10, 11 and 21
[ is    ring above              in ISO 15, and 69
[ is    A tilde                 in ISO 16
[ is    upside down !           in ISO 17
[ is    AE                      in ISO 60 and 61
\ is    backslash               in ISO 2, 4 and 6
\ is    O diaresis              in ISO 10, 11 and 21
\ is    c cedilla               in ISO 15 and 69
\ is    C cedilla               in ISO 16
\ is    N tilde                 in ISO 17
\ is    O slash                 in ISO 60 61
] is    right square bracket    in ISO 2, 4 and 6
] is    A ring above            in ISO 10, 11, 60 and 61
] is    e acute                 in ISO 15
] is    O tilde                 in ISO 16
] is    upside down ?           in ISO 17
] is    U diaresis              in ISO 21
] is    section                 in ISO 69
^ is    caret                   in ISO 2, 4, 6, 10, 15, 16, 17, 21, 60,
                                       61 and 69
^ is    U diaresis              in ISO 11
` is    grave accent            in ISO 2, 4, 6, 10, 11, 16, 17, 21, 60
                                       and 61
` is    u grave                 in ISO 15
` is    mu (micro)              in ISO 69
{ is    left curly bracket      in ISO 2, 4 and 6
{ is    a diaresis              in ISO 10, 11 and 21
{ is    a grave                 in ISO 15
{ is    a tilde                 in ISO 16
{ is    ring above              in ISO 17
{ is    ae                      in ISO 60 and 61
{ is    e acute                 in ISO 69
| is    vertical bar            in ISO 2, 4 and 6
| is    o diaresis              in ISO 10, 11 and 21
| is    o grave                 in ISO 15
| is    c cedilla               in ISO 16
| is    n tilde                 in ISO 17
| is    a ring above            in ISO 60 and 61
| is    u grave                 in ISO 69
} is    right curly bracket     in ISO 2, 4 and 6
} is    a ring above            in ISO 10, 11, 60 and 61
} is    e grave                 in ISO 15
} is    o tilde                 in ISO 16
} is    c cedilla               in ISO 17
} is    u diaresis              in ISO 21
} is    e grave                 in ISO 69
~ is    unused (blank?)         in ISO 2, 4, 10, 60 and 69
~ is    tilde                   in ISO 6 and 17
~ is    u diaresis              in ISO 11
~ is    i grave                 in ISO 15
~ is    ring above              in ISO 16
~ is    ss                      in ISO 21
~ is    vertical bar            in ISO 61

ISO 2   IRV (?)
ISO 4   UK
ISO 6   ANSI ASCII
ISO 10  Swedish
ISO 11  Swedish Names
ISO 15  Italian
ISO 16  Portuguese
ISO 17  Spanish
ISO 21  German
ISO 60  Norwegian1
ISO 61  Norwegian 2
ISO 69  French

-!- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30
 ! Origin: Shadowshack (1:105/51)


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