-=> Maurice Kinal wrote to Tony Langdon <=-

 MK> @MSGID: 
 MK> -={ vendredi, 26 février 2016, 01:02:26 +0000 }=-

 MK> Hey Tony!

 TL> 2008 is still "very recent" compared to BBS software. :)

 MK> According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8, and I quote;

 MK>   UTF-8 was first officially presented at the USENIX conference in San
 MK>   Diego, from January 25 to 29, 1993.

But when sis it become commonplace?  I'm sure it was _much_ later.  Reminds me
of IPv6, that's around 20 years old, but only now becoming commonplace.  I
started playing with IPv6 around 2000.

 MK> Speaking for myself, I am not sure what year I was writing C based BBS
 MK> software but probably around that year.  However it wsa aimed at DOS
 MK> and not any Unice so I have a very good excuse for not encorporating
 MK> utf-8.  Also back then I didn't have a nodelisted Fidonet BBS until
 MK> 1995-ish and that never survived all that long as users were already
 MK> becoming hard to come by and I decided that I could do everything I
 MK> required from Fidonet without a BBS.  Now I am nodelisted simply
 MK> because I am the only native Linux Fidonet app author I am aware of
 MK> that provides working utf-8 apps that can be readily deployed at will.

I was first nodelisted in the middle of 1992, ran for several years with a
loyal following.  The BBS was a major messaging hub with a diverse range of
message areas.  From memory, the BBS wound up towards the end of the 1990s, and
my own point system lived on a bit longer (because of its Internet gateway),
until around 2002.

 TL> I know by 2008-2009, I was having to deal with UTF-16,

 MK> That sounds about right.  One of the many big mistakes engineered by
 MK> the good folks at Microsoft.  Seems to me that they quickly realized
 MK> that they should have made the investment in utf-8 instead and even
 MK> admitted as much.

Yeah, Microsoft did lead the world up the gareden path regularly. :)

 MK> I have utf-16 compatible libraries kicking around but have never
 MK> actually used them.  Also it seems to me that gptfdisk can handle
 MK> utf-16 labels if compiled with the proper dependencies onboard.  Again
 MK> I have never actually tried this as I have been happy with ASCII labels
 MK> since way back when.

:)

 TL> I'm sure vi has also been constantly updated to meet the needs

 MK> According to the main site, ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unix/;

 MK>   -rw-r--r--    1 506      450       9843297 Aug 10  2013
 MK> vim-7.4.tar.bz2

 MK> That is the most recent source release and happens to be the version I
 MK> am currently using.  The oldest version on that site happens to be;

I rest my case on vim. :)
... What is mind? No matter! What is matter? Never mind! - Homer S.
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