Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!mks!wheels
From: wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: vi gobbles 8th bit
Summary: use "set eightbits"
Message-ID: <500@mks.UUCP>
Date: 26 Aug 88 21:12:20 GMT
References: <3160@geac.UUCP>
Distribution: comp.unix.questions
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems, Waterloo, Ont.
Lines: 24

In article <3160@geac.UUCP>, steve@geac.UUCP (Steve Lane) writes:
> I have been using vi for years, and was glad to see that MKS provided it
> for MS-DOS.
> 
> However, I needed to edit files containing 8-bit characters, in order
> to draw fancy boxes etc. When I edited these files with vi, it noted that
> I had 264 non-ascii characters, but chopped them to 7 bits before saving
> the changed file.

If you use the eightbits option, vi will not mash the bytes with the top
bit set.  Once you have done that, you can set the national and native
options to choose how you want to display these characters.  You
mentioned that you wanted to view the IBM PC line drawing characters, so
I suspect your best bet would be to set native. 

Once you find the settings you prefer, you can put the appropriate
command in your ex.rc file so vi will set them each time it starts.  It
looks for ex.rc in the current directory, then in your home directory if
you have $HOME set, or in the root directory if not. 
-- 
     Gerry Wheeler                           Phone: (519)884-2251
Mortice Kern Systems Inc.               UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels
   35 King St. North                             BIX: join mks
Waterloo, Ontario  N2J 2W9                  CompuServe: 73260,1043