Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!mcvax!hafro!askja!frisk From: frisk@askja.UUCP (Fridrik Skulason) Newsgroups: comp.std.internat Subject: Re: A full solution Message-ID: <278@askja.UUCP> Date: Fri, 4-Sep-87 18:03:17 EDT Article-I.D.: askja.278 Posted: Fri Sep 4 18:03:17 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Sep-87 03:55:14 EDT References: <968@homxb.UUCP> Reply-To: frisk@askja.UUCP (Fridrik Skulason) Organization: University of Iceland (RHI) Lines: 34 Keywords: ISO 6937, 8859 On the subject of ISO 6937 versus ISO 8859. 6937 may be better than 8859 for some purposes (communication that is), but as a standard character set for terminals it is useless. The reason ... Simple. Most existing software packages assume that (1 char in text = 1 char on screen). Adapting the software to work with a full 256 character set instead of ASCII may be difficult, but it's still just a minor problem compared to make 6937 work as a standard computer/terminal character set. Here in Iceland ISO 8859 is heavily used. It is the only useful standard that supports all chacters in our alphabet. (ISO 8859/1 - Western Europe that is - the last time I looked ISO 8859/2 (or was that /3) - for Northern Europe did not!) It is available on some personal computers here (Amiga/Atari), on some terminals (ADM in particular), and a couple of printers. In fact - just a few days ago we decided that the University would not buy or support a single piece of equipment that did not support ISO 8859/1. (Meaning - in my case - that I have to work overtime to modify the $#?!$#?!$!!! terminal emulation on the Macs. (I have already fixed the PCs)) So - in our case at least - 8859/1 is here to stay.. -- Fridrik Skulason Univ. of Iceland, Computing Center UUCP frisk@rhi BIX frisk "This line intentionally left blank"