Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!aero!obrien
From: obrien@aerospace.aero.org (Michael O'Brien)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: What happened to the funny characters?
Message-ID: <212@antares.aero.org>
Date: 7 Jan 88 19:53:47 GMT
Reply-To: obrien@anpiel.UUCP ()
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 16

I recently had an interesting time browsing the Smalltalk-72 reference
manual.  I had not previously realized that the language used to
have all sorts of non-standard characters, like a little Dynabook,
a "smiley-face" for a Pen (then called a "turtle"), a pointing
finger for a literal quote, etc.

I don't recall seeing any published reason why all those characters
disappeared by the time of Smalltalk-80.  Was it just a matter of
hoping (someday) to port Smalltalk to more "normal" boxes?  Those
characters had a certain panache which is lacking in the straight
ASCII form of the language as it now stands.
-- 
--------
Mike O'Brien
obrien@aerospace.aero.org
{sdcrdcf,trwrb}!aero!obrien