Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!reading!cf-cm!cybaswan!iiitsh
From: iiitsh@cybaswan.UUCP (Steve Hosgood)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: why does ms_sh mask the 8th bit ?
Message-ID: <1741@cybaswan.UUCP>
Date: 9 Apr 90 09:04:17 GMT
References: <1613@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <2730001@hpgnd.HP.COM>
Reply-To: iiitsh@cybaswan.UUCP (Steve Hosgood)
Organization: Institute for Industrial Information Technology
Lines: 29

In article <2730001@hpgnd.HP.COM> arne@hpgnd.HP.COM (Arne LUHRS) writes:
>davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes
>In article <1613@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes:
>
>|  I certainly will keep that in mind, but for most readers in the usa
>| and europe it's not a problem. The eighth bit seems to be used in
>| Scandanavian countries and Iceland.
>
>Sorry but this just isn't true. The ONLY country in Europe which is NOT
>affected to badly by 7bit character sets is the UK (They just loose the
>pound sign).
>

That's nearly correct, but actually what often happens is that UK equipment
has the so-called 'national characters' rearranged so that the pound-sign
can be included. This then causes all sorts of irritations, like finding
your C-programs being displayed with "<poundsign>include XXX" lines which
look really horrid.

Similarly, keyboard layouts are often 'got at' to move the wretched pound-sign
into a prime site. 'National characters' are the worst kludge in ASCII.

My sympathies are with the Icelanders, Scandinavians, French, Germans etc...
The *BIG* question is: when is the 8 bit version of NEWS coming out?
(Complete of course with ability to switch from any ISO LATIN/xxx character
set to any other in an organised manner - just right for soc.culture.esperanto
people and zillions of others) 

Steve