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From: ct@dde.dk (Claus Tondering)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Questions about LATIN-1 (8859-1)
Message-ID: <1991Apr16.130422.16607@dde.dk>
Date: 16 Apr 91 13:04:22 GMT
Organization: Dansk Data Elektronik A/S
Lines: 28

Could somebody please answer the following questions about
the ISO 8859-1 (LATIN-1) character set:

1) What is the currency symbol used for? And who uses it?
   (I am referring to the symbol in position 0xa4 that looks like
   a sun with four rays emmanating from it.)

2) What are the feminine and masculine ordinal indicators used for?
   (The symbols in position 0xaa and 0xba that look like a small
   underlined a and o.) I believe they are used in Spanish, is that
   true and for what purpose?

3) What is the pilcrow sign used for? And who uses it?
   (The symbol in position 0xb6 that looks like an inverted P.)

4) Do the Germans consider the double-s (position 0xdf) a lower-case
   letter, or is it both upper and lower case?

5) Why does the standard contain the diacritical marks in separate symbol
   positions, when they are also found as parts of letters? When would
   you, for example, want to use the cedille (character 0xb8) or the
   umlaut (character 0xa8) on its own?

-- 
Claus Tondering,         Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark
E-mail: ct@dde.dk
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1 ns < 2 cents < 10 V < 1 km < 100 degrees C < 20 mips < 4 MPa < 1,000,000,000