Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!sot-ecs!spqr From: spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: Re: Proposed Computer Modern 256-char sets (Re: ISO Latin 1) Message-ID: Date: 30 Sep 90 13:10:57 GMT References: <8691@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> Sender: spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk Organization: Southampton University Computer Science Lines: 23 In-reply-to: Damian.Cugley@prg.ox.ac.uk's message of 29 Sep 90 10:06:44 GMT In article Damian.Cugley@prg.ox.ac.uk (Damian Cugley) writes: inclusion of straight quote marks, visibubble space and other ASCII paraphenalia in *every* text font is foolish and wasteful of character slots - 256 characters is tight enough as it is! Also, trying to include "every" accented character fails 'cos they'll always be leaving *something* out. (What TeX needs is better accenting primitives.) i am inclined to sympathize, but I think the people who drafted it were after a pragmatic solution rather than a new international standard. they *did* throw away some of the silly things in ISO Latin 1, but anyone who decides to tinker with the 32--128 area has got to be pretty confident. i am not prepared to say that `straight quotes' are not the norm somewhere in Europe. people want an agreed set of accented letters *now*, not an ideal approach that might work later. i dont think the Cork Standard has much of a hope of succeeding. at best it will replace TeX layout as a standard. and we know how many people outside TeX use *that* -- Sebastian Rahtz S.Rahtz@uk.ac.soton.ecs (JANET) Computer Science S.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bitnet) Southampton S09 5NH, UK S.Rahtz@sot-ecs.uucp (uucp)