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Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #211682 > unrolled thread

What ASCII Should Have Been

Started byQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
First post2020-06-01 19:25 -0700
Last post2020-07-05 16:35 -0700
Articles 20 on this page of 197 — 32 participants

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Contents

  What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-01 19:25 -0700
    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2020-06-02 07:49 +0100
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 00:26 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 00:35 -0700
    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-02 08:18 +0000
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 02:45 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 02:57 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2020-06-02 10:06 +0000
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-02 11:52 +0000
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2020-06-02 12:18 -0400
    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2020-06-02 11:31 +0100
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 05:05 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been daphne@panix.com (Daphne Eftychia Arthur) - 2020-06-03 18:09 +0000
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 14:01 -0700
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 17:54 -0700
            Re: What ASCII actually is John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-04 02:11 +0000
            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been daphne@panix.com (Daphne Eftychia Arthur) - 2020-06-04 03:05 +0000
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 20:26 -0700
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been daphne@panix.com (Daphne Eftychia Arthur) - 2020-06-04 03:27 +0000
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 20:31 -0700
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 20:41 -0700
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2020-06-06 02:22 +0800
            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-05 11:33 -0700
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2020-06-06 13:58 +0800
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-06 11:10 -0700
    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-02 19:46 -0700
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 23:24 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 23:36 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-06-03 17:22 +0000
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 10:33 -0700
            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-06-03 20:30 +0000
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 13:40 -0700
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-06-04 16:59 +0000
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-03 19:50 -0400
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 17:47 -0700
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-06-03 20:53 -0300
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-04 00:08 +0000
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Gerard Schildberger <gerard46@rrt.net> - 2020-06-03 17:10 -0700
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 17:48 -0700
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-06-04 03:11 -0300
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-04 01:18 -0700
                      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-06-05 03:50 -0300
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-05 00:44 -0700
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-05 07:53 -0700
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-05 08:04 -0700
                      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-05 10:03 -0700
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-06-05 11:05 -0500
                      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-05 09:27 -0700
                        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-05 11:45 -0500
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-05 09:55 -0700
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-05 10:16 -0700
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-06-05 18:23 +0100
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-05 10:03 -0700
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Niklas Karlsson <anksil@yahoo.se> - 2020-06-07 15:05 +0000
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-07 09:28 -0700
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Niklas Karlsson <anksil@yahoo.se> - 2020-06-07 19:56 +0000
                                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-07 16:15 -0500
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-06-05 17:31 +0000
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-05 11:24 -0700
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-05 15:02 -0700
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-05 17:40 -0500
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-06 00:10 +0000
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-05 19:44 -0500
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-06 01:54 +0000
                        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-05 10:03 -0700
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-05 11:57 -0700
                        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-06-06 11:15 -0500
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-06 11:10 -0700
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-06-06 16:14 -0500
                              Brest U-boat pens (was: Re: What ASCII Should Have Been "Kerr-Mudd,John" <notsaying@invalid.org> - 2020-06-07 10:01 +0000
                                Re: Brest U-boat pens (was: Re: What ASCII Should Have Been "Kerr-Mudd,John" <notsaying@invalid.org> - 2020-06-07 17:58 +0000
                                  Re: Brest U-boat pens Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-07 15:54 -0500
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> - 2020-06-06 19:12 -0400
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-06 19:40 -0400
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-07 01:22 +0000
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-06 22:22 -0500
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-06-07 10:46 +0100
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-07 07:58 -0700
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-07 15:37 +0000
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-07 21:52 +0100
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-06 19:44 -0700
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Alfred Falk <aefalk@telus.net> - 2020-06-07 03:11 +0000
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 23:25 -0700
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-02 23:27 -0700
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-06-03 10:40 +0100
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-06-03 12:05 +0100
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-03 13:08 +0000
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-06-03 15:47 +0100
            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-03 17:20 +0000
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-03 17:26 +0000
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 10:35 -0700
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-03 18:03 +0000
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-06-03 19:27 +0100
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-03 18:38 +0000
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-03 13:41 -0700
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-03 21:15 +0000
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-06-04 00:25 +0100
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-05 18:27 +0000
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-05 12:00 -0700
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-07 16:52 +0000
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-07 10:21 -0700
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-07 11:03 -0700
                      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-07 19:08 +0000
                        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-07 13:00 -0700
                        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-07 16:09 -0700
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2020-06-09 09:18 +0000
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-09 07:22 -0700
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-09 11:51 -0700
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-06-09 15:40 -0400
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-09 16:25 -0700
                                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-10 06:52 +0000
                                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-10 10:22 +0000
                                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-06-10 14:26 -0400
                                      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-06-10 20:54 +0000
                                    Re: What the DEC-20 was, not ASCII Should Have Been John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-10 18:30 +0000
                                      Re: What the DEC-20 was, not ASCII Should Have Been Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-06-11 19:01 -0400
                                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2020-06-10 19:35 +0000
                                      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-11 12:59 +0000
                                        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-11 07:59 -0700
                                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-11 17:31 +0000
                                            Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-11 21:29 -0700
                                              Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-12 07:04 +0000
                                              Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-12 09:06 +0000
                                                Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-12 05:32 -0700
                                                Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-12 14:11 +0100
                                                  Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS => Alfred Morgan ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2020-06-12 13:41 +0000
                                                    Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS => Alfred Morgan Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-12 14:33 +0000
                                                      Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS => Alfred Morgan Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-12 16:14 +0100
                                                    Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS => Alfred Morgan Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-12 16:07 +0100
                                                      Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS => Alfred Morgan ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2020-06-12 16:59 +0000
                                                      Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS => Alfred Morgan Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-12 10:31 -0700
                                                        Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS => Alfred Morgan Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-06-12 20:33 +0100
                                                      Fun with X-raays (thread drift from  BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-06-12 17:09 -0300
                                                        Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from  BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-12 14:12 -0700
                                                          Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from  BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-12 19:54 -0400
                                                            Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from  BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-12 19:54 -0400
                                                          Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from  BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-06-13 02:57 -0300
                                                            Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from  BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-13 02:15 -0400
                                                        Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-14 13:54 +0100
                                                          Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-14 15:30 -0700
                                                            Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-06-14 22:57 -0300
                                                            Re: Fun with X-raays (thread drift from BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING...) JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-06-14 21:00 -0500
                                                              Re: Fun with X-rays robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-14 21:12 -0700
                                                                Re: Fun with X-rays JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-06-15 10:05 -0500
                                                                  Re: Fun with X-rays Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-15 10:05 -0700
                                                                    Re: Fun with X-rays Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-15 13:26 -0500
                                                                      Re: Fun with X-rays John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-15 18:46 +0000
                                                                        Re: Fun with X-rays J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-15 19:30 -0400
                                                                          Re: Fun with X-rays Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-15 20:36 -0500
                                                                            Re: Fun with X-rays J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-15 22:27 -0400
                                                                            Re: Fun with X-rays Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-16 06:40 +0000
                                                                Re: Radium girls, not Fun with X-rays John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-15 17:29 +0000
                                                  Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-12 07:49 -0700
                                                  Re: BATTERY RADIOS & STIRLING MOTORS robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-12 08:50 -0700
                                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Martin <bob.martin@excite.com> - 2020-06-12 06:07 +0000
                                        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Niklas Karlsson <anksil@yahoo.se> - 2020-06-14 14:50 +0000
                                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been "Kerr-Mudd,John" <notsaying@invalid.org> - 2020-06-14 15:01 +0000
                                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-06-14 11:36 -0400
                                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Niklas Karlsson <anksil@yahoo.se> - 2020-06-14 18:03 +0000
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2020-06-18 18:48 +0000
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-09 07:26 -0700
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-06-09 12:02 -0400
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-09 11:08 -0500
                                  Subject line evolution Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-06-09 17:33 +0100
                                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-09 11:51 -0700
                                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2020-06-18 18:48 +0000
                                Re: fast emulators, not What ASCII Should Have Been John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-09 17:43 +0000
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2020-06-18 18:48 +0000
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-09 07:32 -0700
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-09 07:47 -0700
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-09 11:51 -0700
                                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2020-06-18 18:49 +0000
                              Re: What ASCII Should Have Been usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2020-06-18 18:50 +0000
                            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-09 15:24 +0000
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-09 11:51 -0700
                          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been pechter@lakewoodmicro.com () - 2020-06-16 20:55 +0000
                Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-05 21:27 +0000
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-05 16:54 -0500
                  Re: What ASCII Should Have Been scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-06-05 22:44 +0000
                    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-05 23:18 +0000
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-03 16:37 -0700
            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-04 05:23 +0000
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-06-03 16:35 -0700
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-06-04 11:31 +0100
            Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-04 07:05 -0700
      Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-06-04 15:23 +0000
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-04 09:38 -0700
        Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-06-04 17:31 +0100
          Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> - 2020-06-09 10:25 +0100
    Re: What ASCII Should Have Been Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-05 16:35 -0700

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#211682 — What ASCII Should Have Been

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-01 19:25 -0700
SubjectWhat ASCII Should Have Been
Message-ID<e48ac7a8-e8e5-4417-b524-b41911e0e97c@googlegroups.com>
I know it's too late to change now.

The layout of the Model M keyboard finally got things right, with the two shift 
keys in their proper places, the back space key nicely reachable, and the Enter 
key reachable as well.

However, I still long for the double-height Enter (or carriage return) key of long 
ago...

and on the page

http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/kyb0603.htm

if you scroll right to the bottom,

you will see what I think that ASCII should have been in order to avoid the need 
for ASCII with lowercase to demand a keyboard with more keys on it than a normal 
typewriter had.

And yet, I allow _more_ special characters, not _less_, than we have in regular 
ASCII, by getting rid of all those control characters no one ever uses!

So instead one chooses two modes of operation... one can have the letter keys 
shift from lower-case to upper-case, or one can have them shift from upper-case to 
26 additional special symbols which use codes in the former control-character 
area. The few control characters that are actually needed are, therefore, given 
codes that don't correspond to letters.

Of course, Bob Bemer will hate me... I get rid of the backslash so that the 62 
printables, excluding space, plus the 26 lower-case letters, will fit on a 44-key 
keyboard... and I use that code for a 'printable character escape' that allows 
text to be stored easily at 6 bits per character.

I also replaced [ and ] with | and the EBCDIC logical NOT so that ASCII would 
get along better with EBCDIC.

John Savard

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#211683

FromAndy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>
Date2020-06-02 07:49 +0100
Message-ID<hjmb4kFssn2U2@mid.individual.net>
In reply to#211682
Quadibloc wrote:

> I still long for the double-height Enter (or carriage return) key of long
> ago...

Get a British keyboard then ...

You'll only have to contend with a few symbols moving around ...

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#211684

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-02 00:26 -0700
Message-ID<02eaefcf-771c-4ef5-a75e-7acfb8d6f067@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211683
On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 12:49:57 AM UTC-6, Andy Burns wrote:
> Quadibloc wrote:
> 
> > I still long for the double-height Enter (or carriage return) key of long
> > ago...
> 
> Get a British keyboard then ...
> 
> You'll only have to contend with a few symbols moving around ...

A British keyboard is worse, because the left-hand shift key is now in the wrong 
place. The Model M is _almost_ right, and is the next best thing to a proper 
keyboard. The international keyboard is further away. Also, while the Enter key 
on an international keyboard is double-height, it is in the wrong place, one 
whole key too far to the left.

John Savard

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#211685

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-02 00:35 -0700
Message-ID<96e8b0e1-24ad-4373-a4d5-61c98a4f4a32@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211684
On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 1:26:24 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 12:49:57 AM UTC-6, Andy Burns wrote:
> > Quadibloc wrote:
> > 
> > > I still long for the double-height Enter (or carriage return) key of long
> > > ago...
> > 
> > Get a British keyboard then ...
> > 
> > You'll only have to contend with a few symbols moving around ...
> 
> A British keyboard is worse, because the left-hand shift key is now in the wrong 
> place. The Model M is _almost_ right, and is the next best thing to a proper 
> keyboard. The international keyboard is further away. Also, while the Enter key 
> on an international keyboard is double-height, it is in the wrong place, one 
> whole key too far to the left.

This proposed revision to ASCII is intended to encourage ASCII terminals to have 
a keyboard which follows the design of the One True Keyboard. This is the 
keyboard layout used on the Tandy Model 100 computer, for example, but is is 
also the keyboard layout used on many electric typewriters, including the 
original IBM Selectric typewriter, before the Selectric II added the Express 
Backspace key.

On the One True Keyboard, there shall not be more than fourty-four (44) keys 
with printable characters upon them, not counting the space bar, nor, if one is 
present, the numeric keypad.

Nor shall there be less than 44 keys, because computers get confused if you try 
to type a lower-case "l" where the numeral one (1) should be, and the key with 
plus (+) and equals (=) upon it is important for a computer, as computers do 
lots of arithmetic.

(Holy hand grenades, Batman!)

John Savard

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#211686

FromBob Eager <news0073@eager.cx>
Date2020-06-02 08:18 +0000
Message-ID<hjmgbfF36akU10@mid.individual.net>
In reply to#211682
On Mon, 01 Jun 2020 19:25:10 -0700, Quadibloc wrote:

> I know it's too late to change now.
> 
> The layout of the Model M keyboard finally got things right, with the
> two shift keys in their proper places, the back space key nicely
> reachable, and the Enter key reachable as well.
> 
> However, I still long for the double-height Enter (or carriage return)
> key of long ago...

My Model M has a double height Enter key...UK 102 key version.

-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#211687

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-02 02:45 -0700
Message-ID<1dd2e70c-1ea0-4612-a6d0-432596e9390a@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211686
On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 2:18:57 AM UTC-6, Bob Eager wrote:

> My Model M has a double height Enter key...UK 102 key version.

But it's in the wrong place, and that's much worse than the single-height Enter 
key of the U.S. 101-key keyboard. Also, the left-hand shift key is in the wrong 
place as well.

And why am I so particular?

Well, when I start typing, I put the four fingers of my left hand on ASDF, and 
the four fingers of the right hand on JKL; and then I don't want to have to 
reach so far with either pinky that I have to actually look at my hands again to 
put them back in the right place.

I don't know what proportion of PC users are touch-typists, but many computer 
keyboards are ill-suited to touch-typing. The original 83-key PC keyboard was 
very problematic, the 84-key keyboard of the IBM PC AT was better, but the 
backspace key was hard to reach, and the 101-key U. S. version of the Model M 
was finally satisfactory.

But if ASCII were restructured so that instead of tempting designers to go from 
the 44-key keyboard (in the main area) to a 47-key or 48-key keyboard, it were 
instead built around the 44-key keyboard, these problems *would never have 
arisen*, and keyboards for ASCII terminals would have looked like keyboards for 
EBCDIC terminals - they would have followed the electric typewriter, with no 
need to add any extra keys that would cause trouble.

And by using 26 of the 32 control character positions for additional printable 
characters, the number of printable characters goes up instead of down (from the 
removal of the extra five printable characters that accompanied the lower-case 
alphabet, and also the backslash)!

John Savard

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#211688

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-02 02:57 -0700
Message-ID<4890d0a4-0e8f-4145-8182-8230d8fadd14@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211687
At least one good thing has come out of my fancy of what ASCII should have been.

Doing the artwork to show how this changed ASCII related to APL allowed me 
easily to make code charts to add to the illustrations of the typewriter 
pairing, bit pairing, and Model 38 APL/ASCKII keyboards on the page

http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/kybint.htm

Also, I am well aware of what a UK (or other international) keyboard looks like; 
the illustration on

http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/scan.htm

shows clearly where the keys are (although the international keyboard is shown 
with U.S. legends on the keys).

John Savard

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#211689

FromJorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se>
Date2020-06-02 10:06 +0000
Message-ID<slrnrdc961.kpi.grahn+nntp@frailea.sa.invalid>
In reply to#211687
On Tue, 2020-06-02, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 2:18:57 AM UTC-6, Bob Eager wrote:
>
>> My Model M has a double height Enter key...UK 102 key version.
>
> But it's in the wrong place, and that's much worse than the
> single-height Enter key of the U.S. 101-key keyboard. Also, the
> left-hand shift key is in the wrong place as well.
>
> And why am I so particular?
>
> Well, when I start typing, I put the four fingers of my left hand on
> ASDF, and the four fingers of the right hand on JKL; and then I
> don't want to have to reach so far with either pinky that I have to
> actually look at my hands again to put them back in the right place.

Ctrl-J often (in Unix anyway) does the same thing as Enter; I use that
a lot of the time and it helps somewhat.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

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#211691

FromBob Eager <news0073@eager.cx>
Date2020-06-02 11:52 +0000
Message-ID<hjmsrgFi0eU1@mid.individual.net>
In reply to#211687
On Tue, 02 Jun 2020 02:45:09 -0700, Quadibloc wrote:

> But it's in the wrong place, and that's much worse than the
> single-height Enter key of the U.S. 101-key keyboard. Also, the
> left-hand shift key is in the wrong place as well.
> 
> And why am I so particular?
> 
> Well, when I start typing, I put the four fingers of my left hand on
> ASDF,
> and the four fingers of the right hand on JKL; and then I don't want to
> have to reach so far with either pinky that I have to actually look at
> my hands again to put them back in the right place.

I guess it doesn't bother me now, since I have been using a Model M 
(three of them, in different locations) since 1989, and very little else!

-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#211693

Fromsongbird <songbird@anthive.com>
Date2020-06-02 12:18 -0400
Message-ID<knaiqg-1b2.ln1@anthive.com>
In reply to#211687
Quadibloc wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 2:18:57 AM UTC-6, Bob Eager wrote:
>
>> My Model M has a double height Enter key...UK 102 key version.
>
> But it's in the wrong place, and that's much worse than the single-height Enter 
> key of the U.S. 101-key keyboard. Also, the left-hand shift key is in the wrong 
> place as well.
>
> And why am I so particular?
>
> Well, when I start typing, I put the four fingers of my left hand on ASDF, and 
> the four fingers of the right hand on JKL; and then I don't want to have to 
> reach so far with either pinky that I have to actually look at my hands again to 
> put them back in the right place.
>
> I don't know what proportion of PC users are touch-typists, but many computer 
> keyboards are ill-suited to touch-typing. The original 83-key PC keyboard was 
> very problematic, the 84-key keyboard of the IBM PC AT was better, but the 
> backspace key was hard to reach, and the 101-key U. S. version of the Model M 
> was finally satisfactory.

  i failed my first typing class on manual typewriters.  
it was a teacher and student issue more than anything.

  once i got to college and was using all sorts of 
keyboards (keypunch, hazeltine terminals and then the 
u-100s and eventually the IBM PC and terminals in the
labs for the vaxes or pdps (i don't really remember 
exactly what the labs ran at that time but the terminals 
were vt100 compatible) oh, and then some of the IBM 
terminals too that i used once in a while and the suns 
and...)

  so after a few years i was touch typing just out of sheer 
need to survive how many hours i was stuck in front of
some form of computer or another.

  my favorite keyboard was the model F that came with the
IBM PC.  i regret that i gave it away with the machine 
when i finally left the university.

  i've had several types of keyboards since then.  most
of them not worth mentioning, several died shortly after
their warranty periods passed, for feel the few unicomp
keyboards were better than most others but they were not
durable enough to survive longer than a year.  i would
need someone willing to take the innards and put them on
a metal plate and to get them working again, but i've 
kept them for now hoping someday someone will post a
video of how to put them back together again so i can 
fix them.

  in the meantime i'm using a somewhat stiff logitech 
K840 which at least shows no signs of puking on me.  as
it does have a base plate of metal stong enough to not
bend i hope it will last at least a few years past the
warranty date.


  songbird

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#211690

FromTheo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Date2020-06-02 11:31 +0100
Message-ID<k9u*KQyTx@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>
In reply to#211682
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> you will see what I think that ASCII should have been in order to avoid the need 
> for ASCII with lowercase to demand a keyboard with more keys on it than a normal 
> typewriter had.

I wonder if there was ever any pressure to keep the number of keys down for
cost reasons?  After all, these keyboards used full mechanical switches and
they cost decent money.

Or was it that you were spending $5000 on a computer so the keyboard costs
didn't matter?

Sinclair famously went for a rubber keyboard, so evidently some people
cared.

Nowadays adding extra keys to a membrane keyboard is almost cost-free so
keys (and keyboards) are pretty disposable...

Theo

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#211692

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-02 05:05 -0700
Message-ID<f24d70c9-4eb6-4f70-af38-c583aa749610@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211690
On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 4:31:49 AM UTC-6, Theo wrote:

> I wonder if there was ever any pressure to keep the number of keys down for
> cost reasons?  After all, these keyboards used full mechanical switches and
> they cost decent money.

That is another issue entirely from the one I was considering.

Instead, I'm advocating that the number of keys in one part of a keyboard - if 
the makers of the keyboard want to include a numeric keypad, lots of function 
keys, and so on, all well and good - the central typing area, should be kept 
down so as not to exceed the number of keys in the main typing area of a 
traditional typewriter.

This is to do with ergonomics and the size of the human hand. It is, of course, 
primarily relevant to touch-typists.

John Savard

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#211714

Fromdaphne@panix.com (Daphne Eftychia Arthur)
Date2020-06-03 18:09 +0000
Message-ID<rb8p1i$sjl$1@reader1.panix.com>
In reply to#211692
In article <f24d70c9-4eb6-4f70-af38-c583aa749610@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc  <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>Instead, I'm advocating that the number of keys in one part of a keyboard - if 
>the makers of the keyboard want to include a numeric keypad, lots of function 
>keys, and so on, all well and good - the central typing area, should be kept 
>down so as not to exceed the number of keys in the main typing area of a 
>traditional typewriter.
>
>This is to do with ergonomics and the size of the human hand. It is, of course, 
>primarily relevant to touch-typists.

I'm a touch-typist and think you're full of it.  I'm also a guitarist,
mind you, and playing guitar or piano might make a bigger difference
than actual hand size[*], when it comes to what's a comfortable reach
...  though OTGH, touch-typing for long enough ought to give one the
stretch one needs over time as well.

I've used keyboards that felt a little big, and keyboards that felt too
small to be comfortable to type properly on (fortunately I can do a one
handed version of touch typing on the small ones) and except for the
occasional really oddly placed ESC key, it's always been the _scale_ of
the keyboard, not its _layout_ that matter most to how it feels.  Except
...

... Except when I was using Word Perfect 4.3 a lot, and therefore using
function keys a lot.  Having the function keys off to the left meant I
could just flick my pinky out to hit the Bold key, the Underline key,
the Italic key, etc.  When those moved to above the top row, I started
having to move my hands out of home position to reach them, and that
slowed me way, way down.  Fortunately, my period of heavy word processor
use ended not too long after that, and vi/vim doesn't need me to hit the
function keys.

I'm not sure which control keys you think we can do without.  On various
systems in various decades I think I've needed nearly all of them.
Also, DEL (aka Rubout), which a lot of modern keyboards seem to treat as
equivalent to backspace.  Backing the paper tape up twice to punch a
combination of characters that together added up to DEL would have
worked, I guess, but being able to punch a row of 1s in one keystroke
made correcting a typo smoother.  Backspace, OTOH, could well be a
character I wanted explicitly on the tape.  (For that matter, for a
while I used a Unix password that had backspace in it.)

I don't know Emacs (Emacs hates me so I stay out of its way) but doesn't
that use a lot of control keys as well?

Anyhow, I've far more been slowed down and frustrated by not having keys
I needed and having to sort out the workarounds for them (ISTR that
trying to enter C code on a TRS-80 Model III was a problem) than from
having too many keys or -- barring ESC and function keys -- a difficult
reach.  (Come to think of it, a couple of older terminals put backspace
in a weird place as well, but I just ignored it and hit ^H in those
cases.) Heck, the feel of the switches is a bigger deal than layout.  I
mean, even on the clunky ASR-33, the key layout wasn't what slowed me
down -- the lack of typeahead or rollover, forcing me to pace my fingers
at the fastest it could accept at 110 Baud, was what made the TeleType
difficult! 

It did take me a while to get used to having Control in the bottom row
instead of next to Caps Lock, I admit.  But I did get used to it
eventually.  I make time to grumble about it once every year or so, but
that's only because I'm ornery.

Now if I were to sit down and design The Perfect Keyboard For Me And
Only Me (i.e. a _custom_ keyboard, rather than a "better" keyboard), I
might get as picky as you.  I'd certainly have the numeric keypad
duplicated on the left (farther left than the function keys) since I do
number-pad entry more quickly with my left hand, and for a couple
decades my wish list included having that be a hexadecimal one instead
of decimal, because -- guess what! -- I was typing hex into things a lot
then.  Oh yeah, the Perfect Keyboard For Me And Only Me would have to
change depending on what I was doing a lot of during different periods.
All in all, a few of the layouts of mass-produced keyboards have sucked
pretty badly, but most have been adequate, decent, or better, for a wide
range of tasks.  (Note that choice of switches / mechanical design has
sucked on a lot more keyboards than layout has.)

(I still think about how nice it would have been to have a hex-pad on
the TRS-80 when I learned Z80 machine language.  I mean sure, I
eventually got an assembler for it, but I keyed in a lot of machine code
first.[**])


As for what was wrong with _ASCII_ as opposed to what is wrong with some
keyboards, most of that has been fixed (I'll leave others to debate
whether fixed poorly or well) by Unicode.  I'm remembering typing
non-English titles and authors into the old OCLC terminals, typing (and
displaying) accents and diaresis and cedilla next to the characters they
affected, instead of the way they'd eventually get printed out for the
card catalog.  I also remember looking over my mother's shoulder after
she discovered email, and struggling to parse Greek written entirely in
ASCII, when my cousins wrote to her.  The biggest flaw in ASCII was that
'A' at the front of the acronym.  (And I say this as someone who types
American English most of the time when I'm not typing in a programming
language or ABC code.)



[*] Seriously, the number of times people have said to me, "I wish I
could learn to play guitar but my hands are too small," then been
surprised when I put my hand up against theirs to show them our hands
are the same size ... it's getting used to the reach, not starting out
with large hands, that matters.  And for folks who _do_ have small
hands, there are 3/4-scale and 1/2-scale guitars.  Similarly for
keyboards:  most laptop keyboards and some UCB/Bluetooth keyboards are
small enough that it's faster for me to type one-handed than properly,
and those would probably suit somebody with smaller hands.

[**] That was why, when I got sent out to update some Pascal code on a
client's CP/M box and discovered I needed a snippet of inline assembly
code but I didn't know the Intel mnemonics, only the Zilog ones, I was
able to just stuff in the machine code in hex and stick the Z80 assembly
in comments for whoever came after me, without looking anything up.
Fortunately, like a lot of CP/M machines, it did have a Z80 inside,
because what I put in there used a block-move, but the assemble()
statement in that Pascal compiler was for 8080 since CP/M was specced
for 8080.

-- 
          Daphne Eftychia Arthur              daphne@panix.com
                    Grandis vetus factio delenda est.
                  Everything is better with live music.

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#211721

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-03 14:01 -0700
Message-ID<d917ebc4-5408-4f69-8f06-b79083b33b4d@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211714
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 12:09:56 PM UTC-6, Daphne Eftychia Arthur wrote:

> I'm a touch-typist and think you're full of it.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion.

My personal experience was this: I used both upper-case only ASCII terminals and 
EBCDIC terminals like the IBM 2741 with no problem. (The 3277 display station had 
the Enter key in an awkward place, where the right-hand Ctrl key is on a computer 
keyboard today.)

Then ASCII with lower-case came along. Keyboards had carriage return and 
backspace keys in all sorts of weird hard-to-reach positions on such terminals 
as the Texas Instruments Silent 700 and the LA36 Decwriter. It wasn't until the 
Model M keyboard for the IBM PC set the new standard, many years later, that a 
lower-case ASCII keyboard had the shift, backspace, and Enter keys all in 
appropriate places.

And so I proposed reducing the number of characters in ASCII with lower-case so 
as to reduce the temptation to put extra keys in weird places.

But that's fewer characters, so I fixed that by adding 26 special characters 
that get to be the shifts of the letters in caps mode.

Sure, it's too late to change now. So it isn't really a serious proposal. But 
had ASCII been like that at the beginning, keyboards for computer terminals 
would have been easier to use in so many cases. I've added another image to the 
bottom of

http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/kyb0603.htm

so that people will have no problem seeing what kind of keyboard I'm talking 
about.

John Savard

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#211733

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-03 17:54 -0700
Message-ID<8bdf158c-f2cd-49c4-b342-bd6c9f6f0b6a@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211714
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 12:09:56 PM UTC-6, Daphne Eftychia Arthur wrote:
> The biggest flaw in ASCII was that
> 'A' at the front of the acronym.

But that's fixed now. What we're using is ISO 8859-1, even if some people, out of 
habit, incorrectly refer to it as "8-bit ASCII".

Even before the various flavors of ISO 8859, of which ISO 8859-1 is only one, came 
to be, the 7-bit code could also be referred to either as ISO 7 or as 
International Telegraph Alphabet #5.

John Savard

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#211734 — Re: What ASCII actually is

FromJohn Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
Date2020-06-04 02:11 +0000
SubjectRe: What ASCII actually is
Message-ID<rb9l8b$vna$1@gal.iecc.com>
In reply to#211733
In article <8bdf158c-f2cd-49c4-b342-bd6c9f6f0b6a@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc  <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 12:09:56 PM UTC-6, Daphne Eftychia Arthur wrote:
>> The biggest flaw in ASCII was that
>> 'A' at the front of the acronym.
>
>But that's fixed now. What we're using is ISO 8859-1, even if some people, out of 
>habit, incorrectly refer to it as "8-bit ASCII".

The IETF standard is still RFC 20 which is a copy of a very old
version of ANSI X3.4. The current version of ASCII is ANSI INCITS
4-1986 (R2017) which is what we use here in the U.S.

ISO 8859-1 is a superset of INCITS 4 with more characters in the 0x80
to 0xFF range.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#211735

Fromdaphne@panix.com (Daphne Eftychia Arthur)
Date2020-06-04 03:05 +0000
Message-ID<rb9odr$fqi$1@reader1.panix.com>
In reply to#211733
In article <8bdf158c-f2cd-49c4-b342-bd6c9f6f0b6a@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc  <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 12:09:56 PM UTC-6, Daphne Eftychia Arthur wrote:
>> The biggest flaw in ASCII was that
>> 'A' at the front of the acronym.
>
>But that's fixed now. What we're using is ISO 8859-1, even if some
>people, out of 
>habit, incorrectly refer to it as "8-bit ASCII".

Maybe you are, but most of the time I'm using UTF-8 except when dealing
with tools that aren't 8-bit clean, in which case I use ASCII.  That's
why I can put my name as Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθοθρος in my Twitter handle.
Does ISO 8859-1, ISO 8859-15, or the Windows/Mac near-equivalents
contain complete upper & lowercase Greek alphabets?

I did use 8859-1 (and at least one other ISO 8859 code page but I can't
recall which) for a few years before UTF-8 became ubiquitous, but oy! it
was such a pain figuring out how to get different tools to use the right
code page.  Oh, and I used the upper 128 characters on the TRS-80 Models
I, III, & 4 sometimes -- I don't know whether that character set had a
formal name.

I do remember when I was working for the Army, on a visit to a
contractor I saw they were using the high-bit line-and-box drawing
characters in MS-DOS, and had to explain to them that the system wasn't
going to run on PC/XTs, it was going to run on a Xenix machine with a
bunch of dumb terminals attached (mostly Wyse-50 & Wyse-75).  They were
rather confused.  (They also didn't know about record-locking, because
the idea of a multiuser computer was foreign to them.)


FWIW, I've never encounted a version of ASCII that lacked lowercase
letters, making a few of your earlier statements a bit mysterious to me.
I've used uppercase-only _terminals_ (they handled receiving lowercase
letters by converting them to uppercase for display -- or printing, in
the case of the TeleType), but some of the ones that could only display
uppercase had ways to generate+send lowercase.  Every ASCII chart I
looked at when I was learning about it, there was a section for
lowercase letters.


-- 
          Daphne Eftychia Arthur              daphne@panix.com
                    Grandis vetus factio delenda est.
                  Everything is better with live music.

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#211736

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2020-06-03 20:26 -0700
Message-ID<30fff18e-1598-4e7a-a950-1e3cc7003c49@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#211735
On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 9:05:32 PM UTC-6, Daphne Eftychia Arthur wrote:

> FWIW, I've never encounted a version of ASCII that lacked lowercase
> letters, making a few of your earlier statements a bit mysterious to me.
> I've used uppercase-only _terminals_ (they handled receiving lowercase
> letters by converting them to uppercase for display -- or printing, in
> the case of the TeleType), but some of the ones that could only display
> uppercase had ways to generate+send lowercase.  Every ASCII chart I
> looked at when I was learning about it, there was a section for
> lowercase letters.

It wasn't until 1968 that the version of ASCII with lower-case letters that 
we're familiar with now was introduced.

In 1965, the first draft proposal for ASCII with lower-case letters was 
advanced, but that was not in regular use, and it had several significant 
differences with ASCII as we're familiar with it.

So from 1963 to 1968, ASCII was an upper-case only code, with the area from 
X'60' to X'7B' undefined. The Escape (ESC) character was X'7E' instead of X'1B', 
the Tab character was called Horizontal Tab, the caret (^) was an up-arrow, and 
the underscore (_) was a back-arrow.

I actually have a chart illustrating the history of ASCII on my own web page, at

http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/cp02.htm

on a page about computer arithmetic.

John Savard

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#211751

FromPeter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com>
Date2020-06-04 07:06 -0700
Message-ID<1497101767.612972216.416500.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org>
In reply to#211736
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 9:05:32 PM UTC-6, Daphne Eftychia Arthur wrote:
> 
>> FWIW, I've never encounted a version of ASCII that lacked lowercase
>> letters, making a few of your earlier statements a bit mysterious to me.
>> I've used uppercase-only _terminals_ (they handled receiving lowercase
>> letters by converting them to uppercase for display -- or printing, in
>> the case of the TeleType), but some of the ones that could only display
>> uppercase had ways to generate+send lowercase.  Every ASCII chart I
>> looked at when I was learning about it, there was a section for
>> lowercase letters.
> 
> It wasn't until 1968 that the version of ASCII with lower-case letters that 
> we're familiar with now was introduced.
> 
> In 1965, the first draft proposal for ASCII with lower-case letters was 
> advanced, but that was not in regular use, and it had several significant 
> differences with ASCII as we're familiar with it.
> 
> So from 1963 to 1968, ASCII was an upper-case only code, with the area from 
> X'60' to X'7B' undefined. The Escape (ESC) character was X'7E' instead of X'1B', 
> the Tab character was called Horizontal Tab

I thought it still was Horizontal Tab.

> the caret (^) was an up-arrow, and 
> the underscore (_) was a back-arrow.
> 
> I actually have a chart illustrating the history of ASCII on my own web page, at
> 
> http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/cp02.htm
> 
> on a page about computer arithmetic.
> 
> John Savard
> 



-- 
Pete

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#211737

Fromdaphne@panix.com (Daphne Eftychia Arthur)
Date2020-06-04 03:27 +0000
Message-ID<rb9pmc$6pj$1@reader1.panix.com>
In reply to#211735
In article <rb9odr$fqi$1@reader1.panix.com>,
Daphne Eftychia Arthur <daphne@panix.com> wrote:
>FWIW, I've never encounted a version of ASCII that lacked lowercase
>letters, making a few of your earlier statements a bit mysterious to me.

Never mind; I found it.  From 1963 to 1965 ASCII lacked lowercase.
Something I had not known.  I guess I haven't run into many systems
built during those particular years.

-- 
          Daphne Eftychia Arthur              daphne@panix.com
                    Grandis vetus factio delenda est.
                  Everything is better with live music.

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