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From: dant@tekla.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque;1893;92-789;LP=A;60HC)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.std.internat
Subject: Currency Symbols (summary)
Message-ID: <2395@zeus.TEK.COM>
Date: Thu, 10-Sep-87 21:50:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: zeus.2395
Posted: Thu Sep 10 21:50:14 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Sep-87 16:02:37 EDT
Sender: news@zeus.TEK.COM
Reply-To: dant@tekla (Dan Tilque)
Organization: First National Security Trust Bar and Grill
Lines: 57
Xref: mnetor sci.lang:1333 comp.std.internat:225


[Cleaning up some unfinished business before I leave for 2+ weeks.]


In article <2276@zeus.TEK.COM> I write:
>This got me to wondering: what do those countries who don't have a 
>special currency symbol put in the ASCII currency location.  Please
>e-mail responses, we don't need to flood the net with 600 messages
>saying the same thing.  I'll summarize.

Three people sent me mail describing a generic currency symbol which 
a few people use.  For example:

Anders Andersson (Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University, Sweden):
]     ! ISO specifies a kind of neutral "currency sign", which looks like a
]     ! small circle with four small strokes pointing outwards from it (see
]*   *! the simple bitmap to the left, but make a circle out of that small
] *** ! square - the resolution could be better than 7x5). I don't know of
] * * ! any practical meaning for this symbol, which is sometimes called
] *** ! "sol". I considered it a nuisance when I started programming in BASIC
]*   *! many years ago, as I could never decide how to pronounce LEFT$(...).

]This sign appears on some terminals of those implementing the Swedish 7-bit
]ISO character set, but not all of them (they have a dollar sign instead). I
]believe it's similarly "common" on other European terminals (ISO standards
]seem to include it everywhere). I've learned that it's used in the Russian
](Cyrillic) standard also, but the Russians are probably the only ones who
]would actually *object* to seeing dollar signs on their equipment... To me,
]the "sol" is no more useful than a swastika (!) in the case I would actually
]like to talk about dollars.

]In Britain there is a Pound Sterling symbol, but it replaces the #, not $.
]I think this is good, as having the same code to represent symbols denoting
]totally different currencies could lead to fatal misunderstandings (in a
]commercial contract, for example). This was pointed out in net.nlang about
]a year ago I think.

I agree 100%.  I wasn't aware that the British used a different binary
representation for their currency symbol, but they made a good choice.
Besides the pun, the commecial pount symbol is one of the least used
characters and the few places that it is used, its form seldom has special
significance.

]There is no particular "currency symbol" in Swedish. We use "kr" or nowadays
]the international abbreviation "SEK". I think the whole idea of a common
]place for any nation's "currency symbol" is a bad one, just as bad as a
]common place for any nation's "accented letter". It just leads to more
]confusion, and prevents me from using the "alternative" signs. If I talk
]about dollars, then I mean dollars and not Pounds Sterling or kronor or
]markka or pesetas or rubel or drakhmas or yen...

No one mentioned what the Japanese do to get a Yen symbol.  I suspect that
they just use a capital Y.

---
Dan Tilque
dant@tekla.tek.com  or dant@tekla.UUCP