Ar 12:21 -0700 1999-08-17, scríobh Kenneth Whistler:
>NB's make up charts for special
>purposes, then register them in the IR, where they cannot be stopped,
>basically on "spec" -- with the hope that having them in the registry
>will get them implemented somehow, or will be a lever to push them into
>one of the successful ISO character set standards, such as the 8859 series.
>The IR is used as an alternative means of petition, when one or another
>group has been rejected for a special pleading character set by
>Microsoft or IBM. Ultimately it is the *vendor* character sets that
>matter, since those are the ones that carry all the data (including the
>vendor implementations of ISO character sets like 8859-x). So everyone
>and their brother uses the IR as a way to try to pressure vendors to
>implement their particular pipedreams.
You will doubtless be comforted to know that ISO/IEC 8859-14 has been
implemented in Ireland and that people are actually buying and using Gaelic
fonts using this encoding.
>Or look at IR 152, "Residual Characters of ISO 6937-2:1983" "This set
>of graphic characters comprises the 25 characters specified in ISO 6937-2:1983
>but not in Parts 1 to 9 of ISO 8859." Huh? This is just using the IR
>for standards bureaucracy -- a file folder to place a collection of
>unmapped characters, and not a registration with any implementation
>point.
This may have been used by library systems switching 7-bit code pages
according to 2022, Ken. Or it may just be crap....
>And for the other, small character set registrations, all of the problematical
>mappings are just left sitting. Since there is no quality control on the
>garbage that goes in, there is no way, in many instances, to tell *what*
>the character is, in relation to either the UCS or any other character
>set.
This is why the revision of ISO/IEC 2375 is resurrecting the RA-JAC. Like
it or not, the stuff in the ISO-IR needs to be mapped where mappable. Most
of it isn't that horrific. Some of it is actually useful and used. The
Bliss set, for instance.
-- Michael Everson * Everson Gunn Teoranta * http://www.indigo.ie/egt 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland Guthán: +353 1 478 2597 ** Facsa: +353 1 478 2597 (by arrangement) 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
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