Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!apollo!jch
From: jch@apollo.uucp (Jan Hardenbergh)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: ISO 8859
Message-ID: <3c0796a5.137b8@apollo.uucp>
Date: 13 May 88 17:00:00 GMT
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, Mass.
Lines: 20

>In article <3801@zodiac.UUCP>, rlee@deimos.ads.com (Richard Lee) writes:
>> Can someone tell me exactly what is defined by ISO standard 8859?
>> Thanks.

> This is the ISO standard for single byte 8-bit encodement of graphical
> character shapes. 
> There are 6 (currently) subsets to this standard, the most popular
> being IS-8859/1 which defines most characters required to support W.European
> languages. One key feature of 8859 is that it includes 7-bit US ASCII 
> representation in the bottom half of each and every subset of the standard. 

> Glenn Wright. {..}glennw@sun or {..sun}!glennw

It is important to distinguish a character set from a font. ISO 8859/1 is
a character set. A "byte 8-bit encodement of graphical character shapes"
means that a certain bit pattern should look like a certain glyph. An a
is an a. It does not specificy a particular graphical representation the
way a font does - Helvetica. 8859/1 is also called ISO Latin Alphabet #1.

Jan Hardenbergh    {decvax,mit-eddie,umix}!apollo!jch    Apollo Computer