Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 5/22/85; site cbosgd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.internat
Subject: Re: I hate to say I told you so...
Message-ID: <1762@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Jan-86 17:10:07 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1762
Posted: Sun Jan 12 17:10:07 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jan-86 04:47:20 EST
References: <274@ivax.icdoc.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 35

Good, let's get some discussion going here.  I suppose this
would go better as separate messages, but that's nontrivial,
given the format of the original message.

>US keyboards why are we forced to use them.

As you can all see, I have a gun to your head and will shoot you if
you don't use that US keyboard you have there.

I see lots of American companies which produce foreign language
keyboards and character sets, I'm willing to bet there are lots
of European companies that produce keyboards for the local market.
If you think you've got it bad in England trying to use a US keybaord
(aww) imagine what the poor Japanese are going through!  (and THEY
actually seem to PREFER the US keyboard and US phonetic conventions
for input of Japanese text!)

>Is this a dollar or a pound ? $

I never understood why the British decided to put their currency symbol
on top of the 3 and leave the $ on shift 4, instead of putting their
currency symbol in the "currency symbol" slot.  Just because some fraction
of the US pronounces # as "pound" (most prounce it "number sign", "hash
mark", or "sharp") Britain has two currency symbols on their keyboards.

>Why are machines released over a year ahead in the colonies. (e.g. Amiga) ?

Yeah, you've got it rough over their with no Amigas.  On the other hand,
I understand Commodore has released a UNIX box with a high res bitmap
display, costing a typical Commodore price, but only in Europe.  Apparently
Commodore has managed to alienate the US dealers by selling the C64 and VIC
20 through K Mart and Toys R US, so they won't carry a higher end machine
that requires customer support.  (That doesn't explain why dealers here
are carrying the Amiga, though, maybe they don't want their new products
competing with each other.  Or maybe they are test marketing.)