Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!shelby!neon!torrie
From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Announcement--new "Unicode" standard
Message-ID: <1991Feb24.175313.10206@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 24 Feb 91 17:53:13 GMT
References: <39545@cup.portal.com> <1902@public.BTR.COM> <1991Feb24.164137.11897@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Sender: torrie@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Lines: 36

es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes:

>In article <1902@public.BTR.COM> thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) writes:
>>In article <39545@cup.portal.com> Classic_-_Concepts@cup.portal.com writes:
>>>
>>>                    Unicode Standards -- News Bulletin
>>>                    ==================================
>>> [...]
>>
>>and neglected to mention the proposed 16-bits per character in the article
>>about Unicode that I read.
>>
>	What? You mean all those programs that depend on
>sizeof(char) being 1 are going to break! 8-)

>	Actually, there is no reason why a new 8-bit ASCII
>definition cannot cover most all of the accentuations based upon
>the English/French/German/... alphabet. I'm sure the people
>making those standards aren't truly dumb, but they will get no
>support for a 16 bit standard.

  An 8-bit ASCII can cover most of the English/French/German alphabet,
but that is not what the vendors behind Unicode are aiming for.  You
see, there's this thing called "market size"...  There happen to be
more people who speak Chinese than there are people who speak any
other language.
  That's a huge market (1.1 billion people and growing faster than any
other market), which few vendors are able to tap with their 8-bit
Roman-alphabet based systems.
  I'm glad ASCII is finally being phased out... it's just not
appropriate for today's international world.

-- 
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Evan Torrie.  Stanford University, Class of 199?       torrie@cs.stanford.edu   
Today's maxim:  All socialists are failed capitalists