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From: bpendlet@bambam.dsd.es.com (Bob Pendleton)
Newsgroups: comp.society.development
Subject: Re: Who is on the net?
Message-ID: <1991Jun17.192644.29806@dsd.es.com>
Date: 17 Jun 91 19:26:44 GMT
References: <1632@ucl-cs.uucp>
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In article <1632@ucl-cs.uucp>, G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:

> I also wonder whether "email" is the medium of choice for all
> communitities in all parts of the world. With the X.400 protocol,
> voice-mail and pictures are possible.

> Anyway, it has be English or Spanish if it is going to be
> spoken/written. The Chinese dialects and Japanese are not the easiest
> for email transmission, as yet. I do not know about Cyrillic.

I know what I'm about to say sounds a bit humorous in light of the
level of computer technology being discussed here, but...

An X based mailer could send the font name as part of the text, and
encode the text using the appropriate glyph indices. That way, any
alphabet can be used to send and receive email.Another alternative
would be to just send compressed bit maps.

A slightly higher level of technology gets you a lot of flexibility.

-- 
              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
   bpendlet@dsd.es.com or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or hellgate!esunix!bpendlet

                         Tools, not rules.