Xref: utzoo comp.misc:5293 comp.text:3364
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!ncar!noao!asuvax!mcdphx!mcdchg!ditka!bucket!leonard
From: leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.text
Subject: Re: Turning Wordstar format into ASCII
Message-ID: <1273@bucket.UUCP>
Date: 25 Feb 89 04:32:49 GMT
References: <989@thoreau.ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov> <975@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <824@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Reply-To: leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Rick's Home Grown Unix; Portland, OR
Lines: 24

In article <824@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> morris@jade.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Mike Morris) writes:
<>> 
<>> I have on a UNIX system some files uploaded via kermit from a PC-compatible
<>> in disgusting WordStar format.  I'm sure the translation to get rid of the
<>
<>Which version of WS?  if 3 or 4 just clip the high bit.  If 5 more work is 
<>to be done.
<
<Don't be too quick to do that!!  It's a common belief that zeroing the high
<bit is all that is needed.  The codes for several of the punctuation
<characters are different (soft hyphen <> hyphen+80h, but I'm not sure)
<Also, in my conversion program I dropped all soft spaces.  (When I changed
<from CP/M to PC-DOS I also changed printers.  The new one was wider, and
<all the line length / smooth right margin stuff had to be changed, so
<ragged right files were easier to move.

Also on WS4, if there are any "graphics" characters in the file (ie 80h
thru FFh) they are stored as <1Bh><grahics char><1Ch>. So they have to
have the 1Bh and 1Ch stripped.
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short