Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!rpi!crdgw1!ge-dab!ge-rtp!edison!rja
From: rja@edison.GE.COM (rja)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: 7-bit ASCII vs. 8-bit ASCII
Message-ID: <1928@edison.GE.COM>
Date: 25 Apr 89 12:20:11 GMT
References: <2568@ndsuvax.UUCP> <5153@hubcap.clemson.edu> <1468@auspex.auspex.com> <Apr.19.10.41.28.1989.7554@paul.rutgers.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: GE-Fanuc North America
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In article <Apr.19.10.41.28.1989.7554@paul.rutgers.edu>, halldors@paul.rutgers.edu (Magnus M Halldorsson) writes:
> The ISO 8859 character sets specify sets for specific languages. Now
> what if one wants to use a combination of those? Is there any standard
> for storing, representing, and switching between various (ISO)
> character sets? What if one wants to allow for Japanese or Chinese as
> well?
> 

The Chinese standard is reportedly going to reserve the characters
(decimal) 0 thru 255 for romanised characters.  I've forgotten what
the Japanese standard say, but it is possible that 128-255 are used
for either Hiragana or Katakana.

SS1 and SS2 are freqently used to shift character sets.  A good place 
to look for European usage is X/OPEN.  For Asian character sets, you'll
have to acquire the standards.