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From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.internat
Subject: Re: I hate to say I told you so...
Message-ID: <840@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 25-Jan-86 01:59:25 EST
Article-I.D.: rtech.840
Posted: Sat Jan 25 01:59:25 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jan-86 05:32:00 EST
References: <274@ivax.icdoc.UUCP> <1762@cbosgd.UUCP> <270@stl.UUCP> <762@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
Lines: 30

> >
> >I for one am glad that the pound sign (on my US-made VT100) is NOT on
> >the same key as the dollar sign, as I often have to use both in the
> >same document - e.g.  when preparing purchasing budgets etc. for
> >US-made gear where both dollar and sterling prices are shown.
> 
> ... Not to mention that if I send a letter from the USA to my
> potential client in London saying something will cost $1000, and it
> looks to him like it will cost 1000 pounds because his terminal draws a
> pound sign where I put a $ sign ... just imagine the confusion.

What if you want to correspond with someone in Japan?  Where should the yen
sign be?  (A yen sign is a capital Y with a line through it).  Should the
character set contain all three symbols, just in case?

Obviously, this can be extended to every major currency that has its own
symbol.  The keyboards and character sets aren't big enough.  I can't think
of any general way to solve the problem of assigning international currency
symbols, except to spell the name of the currency instead of using the
symbol.  This means that users would have to be aware of character set
dependencies.

How do you guys in Europe handle this problem?  Each of the national character
sets has a symbol for the currency of its own country, doesn't it?
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..."

{amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff
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