Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!geac!becker!pantor!richard
From: richard@pantor.UUCP (Richard Sargent)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Why does 'stevie' mask the 8th bit ?
Message-ID: <60.UUL1.3#5109@pantor.UUCP>
Date: 20 Mar 90 15:19:28 GMT
References: <14602@s.ms.uky.edu>
Organization: Pansophic Systems Inc, Graphics Product Company
Lines: 29

sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) in Message-ID: <14602@s.ms.uky.edu> writes:

> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes:
> |PROGRAMMERS: PLEASE DON'T *MASK* the 8th bit !!!!!
...
> What you guys in iceland need is not to require the rest of the world
> to accomodate you, but for you to accomodate the rest of the world.
> Perhaps you need a new standard with digraphs or something.

How terribly self-centered! "Accomodate the rest of the world" indeed!
That is EXACTLY what the original author is asking! Let's just do a quick
tour of languages in common usage throughout the world: English, French,
Icelandic, Norwegian, Swiss, German, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Yugo-
slavian, Greek, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, ... the list
goes on.

Of all those languages, only english can get by with seven bits, but
even then poorly. Does your terminal have a "cents" symbol? How about
"copyright"? How about the various ligatures?

Now for some elementary democracy. How many native english speakers in
the world 200M to 300M maybe as much as 500M? Population of the world?
A hell of a lot more!

Maybe Mr. Casey was joking, maybe he thought the smiley would be
"understood", if so, then I apologize for this tirade.

Richard Sargent                   Internet: richard@pantor.UUCP
Systems Analyst                   UUCP:     ...!mnetor!becker!pantor!richard