On Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 02:04:57PM -0500, Ayers, Mike wrote:
> Aesthetic concerns are nice, but the English-reading community has quite
> firmly set them in the "optional" category. For at least one language,
> 7 bits was plenty.
Picking up something slightly more complex, but not high budget or
mathematical, I can't say I agree. Outside ASCII, Space:1889 needs
the copyright sign, directional quotes, the multiplication sign, the
pound sign, a hyphen and a dash distinct from the negative sign, and a
dagger. Südmeer also shows up in the text as a foreign name; I'm
not sure it counts. I have seen naïve in books, even on this mailing
list, and façade and jalapeño in common English use, and rôle in
older books (and occasionaly on mailing lists.) Actually, CP1252 seems
to cover it pretty well, but it isn't covered by ASCII. It might barely
be coverable by a hypothetical 7-bit code, but not without stepping on
the C0 codes and probably not one you could use to type C or Unix.
-- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org "I don't care if Bill personally has my name and reads my email and laughs at me. In fact, I'd be rather honored." - Joseph_Greg
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