Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!isgate!krafla!frisk
From: frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ALED goes to .... (technical questions)
Message-ID: <3260@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Date: 17 Jun 91 09:28:33 GMT
References: <19965@csli.Stanford.EDU> <1991Jun16.122436.12392@cbfsb.att.com>
Reply-To: frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason)
Organization: University of Iceland (RHI)
Lines: 22

In article <1991Jun16.122436.12392@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes:
>My main question is this - do word processors newer than MS Word
>provide a form of 8th-bit support that Word 4.0 does not have?  Or do
>versions of MSDOS newer than 3.3 provide a new form of support?  If so,
>what is it?

Huh ?  What do you mean ?

Word provides full 8-bit support and has always done so. Version 2.x,
version 3.x and version 4.x - no problems.  As I said in an earlier posting,
the folks at Mikrosoft know what they are doing (at least in this respect).

Even though you might have to use ALT-sequences to enter 8-bit characters,
we don't - those characters are present on the main keyboard, and the
keyboard driver which grabs INT 9 just converts the scan codes to the correct
8-bit code and puts it in the keyboard buffer.

Any program which uses INT 16 to get a characeter from the keyboard and does
not mask the 8th bit away will work.  Any program which replaces the INT 9
handler with its own driver (almost certainly) will not.

-frisk