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From: donn@hpfcla.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.internat
Subject: Re: Re: What do we REALLY want? (Smalltalk!)
Message-ID: <185000001@hpfcdc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Nov-85 21:33:00 EST
Article-I.D.: hpfcdc.185000001
Posted: Sun Nov  3 21:33:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Nov-85 04:01:26 EST
References: <484@enmasse.UUCP>
Organization: 03 Nov 85 19:33:00 MST
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I'm not sure about ANSI, but both ISO and JIS have standards for character
font selection.  (So does GOST (that's Russia, for those who care), I 
believe.)  Before carrying any discussion further on the issue of character
sets, it's probably a good idea to do it in the context of existing standards.

These standards do NOT solve all (or anything like all) of the problems,
but any proposal inconsistent with them is doomed to fail due to government
standards (usually NOT in the US) endorsing the above standards.

In particular the ESC character is used in conjunction with SI and SO for
a lot of mixed font data.

I don't have copies of the relevent standards handy, and I'm not enough of
an expert to talk sensibly about the technical issues, but pragmatic 
reality says that these standards have to be considered.

Donn Terry
HP Ft. Collins
ihnp4!hpfcla!donn    (303)226-3800 x2367

P.S.  Honeywell (Arizona??) used to print a multi-colored chart of all the
character set standards current at the time.  It included ASCII/ISO, JIS,
GOST, and (gasp) EBCDIC (at least).  It summarized all the exceptions, national 
conventions, and had citations to the relevent standards.  Does anyone know if
they've kept it up, or if there is an equivalent I could get?