Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!wirzeniu
From: wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ALED goes to the wastebasket here in Iceland
Message-ID: <1991Jun16.100301.25956@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 16 Jun 91 10:03:01 GMT
References: <27098@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <7270@vela.acs.oakland.edu>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 48

In article <7270@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil writes:
>Instead of complaining about the lack of 8th bit support in various
>programs, how about supplying authors with some sample text files and
>a small program which configures their computer to GENERATE AND
>DISPLAY this text (or alternatively, instructions on how to do it by
>installing the needed device drivers which are supplied with MS-DOS).

Good point. Education is better than flaming.

The sample text files can easily be generated with a small program that
outputs all charaters in the range 0..255 or 32..255 (if you don't want
to handle control characters, you might want to, though).

Since the PC display hardware can show all of the characters, there
shouldn't be any need for configuration of that part. You might need to
output some control characters directly into screen memory, however.
Output to printers and other hardware usually requires some kind of
translation. 

The input configuration is also solved already in MS-DOS (at least it is
in all the versions I have used, but I don't know if these solutions are
available in the US).  In earlier versions it is called keybxx.com,
where xx is the country code, e.g.  su for Finland (BTW, su comes from
the Finnish name, Suomi), uk for the UK, etc.  These programs stay
resident and catch the keyboard interrupt and modify the translation of
keyboard scan codes. 

In later versions (4.0 I think), there is only one program, keyb, which
takes the country code as an argument. The details can be found in the
manual.

Of course, you can also use the Alt-keypad method (press Alt, enter
three digit code on the keypad, release Alt). This is awkward, but
doesn't require you to learn a new keyboard layout.

There are some things that need to be considered besides the entry and
display of 'graphics characters'. First, since editors usually have
commands that operate on words, it would be very nice to have it
recognize all of our characters as letters. Second, it would also be
nice if the program would know how to do case insensitive character
comparisons for our characters as well. Third, all of this should be
configurable.

Anyone thinking about how to handle 8 bit characters should take a look
at MicroEmacs (3.10), which handles the problem pretty well. It's not
easy, but it's a good way to get friends abroad.
-- 
Lars Wirzenius     wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi