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From: wcs@ho95e.ATT.COM (Bill.Stewart)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: Character representation
Message-ID: <1687@ho95e.ATT.COM>
Date: Fri, 28-Aug-87 22:54:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: ho95e.1687
Posted: Fri Aug 28 22:54:51 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Aug-87 06:47:43 EDT
References: <2171@enea.UUCP> <8410@utzoo.UUCP> <47@piring.cwi.nl> <718@maccs.UUCP>
Reply-To: wcs@ho95e.UUCP (46133-Bill.Stewart,2G218,x0705,)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs 46133, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 22

In article <718@maccs.UUCP> gordan@maccs.UUCP (Gordan Palameta) writes:
:>In article <8410@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
:>) [if the French had invented computers, ........
:If the French had invented computers, there is little doubt that a character
:set to support French would have appeared sooner.  .....
:There is no chance that a 16-bit character set would have sprung up, fully
:formed -- computer memory used to be very, very expensive (weren't characters
:six bits, once upon a time?)

It would be variable length, from 5 to 14 bits ... but the last three
or four aren't pronounced :-).   More seriously, while a given
numeric character representation doesn't correspond identically to the
collating sequence, (viz. English [Aa]<[Bb]... vs ascii or ebcdic),
one can build a table listing character representations in sequence,
and use it for sorting rather than building the sequence into the
language, as was suggested with #pragma language(Franglais).  While one
might use the representation directly when the collating sequence
doesn't really matter (e.g. building unique lists), one can still build
library functions to compare words.
-- 
#				Thanks;
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs