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From: gnu@cgl.ucsf.edu@hoptoad.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Telnet 8th bit: a good use for that bit...
Message-ID: <8702140255.AA14335@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Fri, 13-Feb-87 21:55:47 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.8702140255.AA14335
Posted: Fri Feb 13 21:55:47 1987
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JBVB%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("James B. VanBokkelen") writes:
> A couple of weeks ago, I posted a query about Telnet implementations
> that sent Ascii with bit 8 set (parity, or whatever).  The question
> was brought on when I ran across code that religiously masked off
> the high bit before passing it to a PC's display.

I think that it would be good to specify that 8-bit values passed
on Telnet connections are in ISO Latin I (essentially, extend NETASCII
to 8 bits using the ISO character set that contains all the graphics
for all the Latin languages).

If the number of programs that actually pass 8-bit data is small enough
(James' list only showed about 5 programs) then this change can be feasible.

Note that since SMTP uses telnet encoding, this would allow international
characters in mail, entered in a local character set, translated to ISO 
Latin I while flying over the wire, then translated to the recipient's local
character set.

This would have implications for FTP, too, if it was adopted.