Hello Michiel,

MvdV> I think it is for at least a part. You obviously did not know that ASCII
MvdV> is a subset of UTF-8. The part about "unknown" is certainly true.

OK.

MvdV> Your favourite machine is 30 years old.

Only the case, powersupply, and motherboard.
Every thing else is upgraded with more recent parts,
i.e. including Kinetic StrongARM processor with extra memory at the
processorcard, extra main and video memory, large HDD of 80 GB
More serial ports, two NIC's, SCSI. Jaz drive, LCD monitor, USB ports etc.
So it is a mucgh expanded machine.

MvdV> How long can you expect the rest of Fidonet to hold back because you
MvdV> want to hold on to three decades old stuff?

Have you ever heard of KISS, Keep it Stupid Simple.
The current race for every time new hard- and software is only an econmic
reason to earn money and making very few people rich, i.e. Bill Gates etc..

Some guys send much overhead in a Word file, for just a simple weblink.
They could also send a simple textfile instead of a M$ Word file.
The same happends with HTML in E-Mail. HTML is for websites, not for mail.

MvdV> If all of mankind had that attitude, there would not have been a
MvdV> mankind. We'd never have left the sea and still be fish.

Now the fish in the oceans get more and more plastics to eat ;-(.
Old western hardware is moved to eastern countries were it pollutes the soil.

MvdV> There is also the reading experience. The eye also wants its share.

In books and at posters yes,
but for simple mail it is only giving the stress of unlimited choices.
Here in the western world people ar going mad because of so many silly choices.
See all that kinds of thea with fruits in it etc.
Complete nonsense I think. I still use only one kind I always used.
All others are overkill, even when you compare that to people who have no thea
at all ;-(.

HD> You can write e'e'n in stead, no special apostrophes needed ;-).

MvdV> I can, but it looks awfull.

I donot care for that very few occasion.

MvdV> Plus that if I need to encase it in quotes,
MvdV> reading becomes a parsing contest: 'e'e'n'. Can you parse "'e'e'n'"?

Why should it be enclosed in quotes?

MvdV>>> "Roel" and "Ro‰l" are not the same person.

HD>> You can write Ro"el, no special apostrophes needed ;-).

MvdV> I can write it. In the sense that with some effort I can push the
MvdV> required keys in my keyboard.

And I have problems to find the right keys for that High ASCII character
I seldom use. Besides that, on many machines it is something else for that
character, no thanks. Almost no keyboard is the same ;-(.

MvdV> But when I see "Ro"el" I have to think
MvdV> very hard to extract the meaning. Plus that search algoritms will not
MvdV> work with this encoding.

That's just a much better privacy lock ;-).

MvdV> Googling "Ro‰l" and "Ro"el" give very different results.

You opposed not te be found by Google.

HD> At the basis school I learned that the trema means a split before the
HD> character it is placed on. So Ro"el is correct and Roe"l is
HD> wrong.

MvdV> So you say. But my guess is that that is just your opinion and not fact
MvdV> learned at school.

It was explicitely explained where the word should be splitted,
i.e. before the letter with the trema on it.

MvdV> When I learned to read at school there were no computers ans ASCII
MvdV> did not exist yet.

That has nothing to do with it. The trema is needed to split the pronounciation
between the two vowels, you normally speach out as one sound.
It means a split in sound, and also writing to show the difference.

MvdV> Dutch typewrites could deal witg accents and tremas in the proper way.
MvdV> Encodeing ano with trema as the sequence ""o" or "o"" was totally
MvdV> unheard of.

Of course no one wrote the trema before a letter, but just above.
You had only to think were the immaginary split of the sound should be
en that was before the vowel with the trema, never behind.

HD>>  Other point is the points on the i with a trema. There should
HD>> be three of them not two, because the letter i already has one of its
HD>> own. The trema is an extra 2 points, so in total 3. A good typewriter
HD>> does this write well, i.e. which all the three points.

MvdV> If you say so. I have never seen such a typewriter. If an ‹ is created
MvdV> by overstriking it may result in three dots above.

And that is the only correct presentation, as the trema is an extra, above the
normal letter i with its own point already above it.

MvdV> I would not say that therefore it is correct. Language is not logic,
MvdV> it follows its own rules. The convention is two dots over the i.

I always wrote three points in the i when necessarry.
Not any teacher corrected me of this writing, and after 1975 I wrote much by
typewriting as I have a bad handwriting because of a small defect.

HD>  That's why I am allways talking about the Point(s) on the i ;-).

MvdV> Then put your money where your moyh is and TYPE an '¡' with three dots
MvdV> above. ;-)

In computer writing it is hardly possible to write 3 dots on the i.
May be it could be done with LaTex?

HD>> The Duth "y with dots are mostly spelled as two characters "ij"

MvdV> That is not how I learned it in elementary school. On Roggeveen's
MvdV> "Aap, noot mies" leesplankje yje "ij" in "Gijs" was one letter:

MvdV> https://www.knutselstore.nl/diamond-painting/diamond-painting-aap-noot-
MvdV> mies-40x60/

I have never seen that at our schools.
Only when my 5 years younger sister went to school in Rotterdam, she got that.
My first impression was that is was a strange way of learning the reading.
At our school in Nijmegen we had a more straight way, i.e. first learning the
complete alphabet, and then starting reading in simple books.
No kind of that reading woods ;-).

MvdV> And that is how I learned to write it. ONE letter, written without
MvdV> lifting the pen from the paper.

We also learned to write the y in two letters without lifting the pen from
the paper.
I only saw that single character after I left my 5 schools I have been on.

MvdV> Writing it as a the digraph 'ij' was a consession to
MvdV> internationalisation when the market was flooded with
MvdV> foreign typewriters not supporting the Dutch concatenated 'ij'

My Swiss made typewriter Hermes 3000 from 1975 indeed does not have.
The old first Hermes 3000 from 1969 from my mother neither.
My Juki 2200 daisywheel typewriter with parallel port indeed has it,
but I never used it, because I have not learned that letter.

MvdV> Yet there are EU countries were Cyrillic is the alfabet for the native
MvdV> Language. North Macedonia and Bulgaria come to mind. It is not all that
MvdV> far. You can het there in your own car without needing a passport.

HD>> I have not the energy for to learn.

MvdV> Pity. But you can't bocj the rest of Fidonet just because of that...

You are also going to learn at least the 2000 characters in Chinese or Japanes,
Thay etc.?
That is much more difficult.
I see that great amount of characters the same as the UK way of counting money
and measurements in feet, Pounds etc. as the USAsians still use.
We have the more simpel metric system.
As I wrote earlier; Keep it simple, in stead of much accents, from which
several always give trouble.

MvdV>>> Bj”rn is right. The 26 letters of the ASCII character set are
MvdV>>> not enough to properly express oneself in writing. Even for the
MvdV>>> Brittish it is not enough . No pound sign 'œ' in ASCII...

HD> You can write UKP for it, no special sign needed ;-).

> The problem with thse acronyms is that they are seldom unique.

Every body will understand the term: this costs UKP 2.000,00

HD> Yes, not every one will follow, we have here someone only writing in
HD> lc. That's a choice others should also respect.

MvdV> Respect should be a two way street...

The same as love ;-).

MvdV> Then maybe you should widen your horizon. Even for DOS reader that can
MvdV> change encoding on the fly have been around for a quarter of a century.

I have never seen that.
At my BBS there I installed even a full screen editor for the users.
But I hardly used it myself as it was not so easy to learn.

MvdV> No excuse..

You can not ask everyone to learn everything.
I am glad that I did come so far unless my difficulties (handicaps).

MvdV>>> For DOS there was also CYRILLIC.COM.
HD> Even a far from my bed show I have not the energy for.
MvdV> Just downloading the program and typing CYRILLIC at the DOS prompt did
MvdV> the trick.

I still do not understand that language, and I save my energy for other more
pleasant things to do. I already have enough trouble to work at.

Henri.

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