Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!udel!mmdf
From: FYS-MA%FINTUVM.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Matti Aarnio)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: awk/sed (looking for source)
Message-ID: <844@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 17 Dec 87 12:15:12 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 56

>Andy asked what BITNET really does...  His keyboard test looks
>good to me, but what it doesn't show is what happens to tabs.
>When source files reach my site, every tab is expanded to exactly
>four spaces, no matter where it is on a line.  This isn't *too*
>bad -- it only makes the sources look ugly...  ;-)
>
>-tih

I think BITNET (or gateway mailer) does also something else.
Just on recent pr.c -posting (arrived to me last night as was this post
also) there is an usage info line, that has been cut to half between -h,
and -w explanations.

On BITNET mails have NEVER longer lines than 80 chars !
(Something to do with IBM networking using RSCS protocols)

Sometimes gateways are 'smart', they wrap excessive tails to next line,
but some simply zap the tail off...
Fortunately later is becoming rare, but I have seen it from time to time.

I have also observed MAIL FILE-TAIL-EATER phenomena, that is: last line
of posting is lost !  Propably this is only our NETNEWS systems trouble,
but anyway it is distracting.  ('Bug-busters' are searching it already)
Allways add "", at least to **ENCODE:d postings.

There is also question about EBCDIC.  You know ASCII is (with 7 lowmost
bits) same everywere, but EBCDIC ISN'T !
On EBCDIC (Extended BCD -- originally for numbers only ?) nearly every
coutry (if not every installation) have different character sets.
When you type bracket (lets say: left), I may get it to my screen,
or I may get dollar-sign, or number-sign, or most propably upper-
case A-umlaut (eg: A+").  This trouble is present with nearly all
special characters.   Also translating ASCII->EBCDIC->ASCII can
change characters; example: Your exclamation mark changes to my dollar-
sign. -- I know, somebody has bad EBCDIC<->ASCII table -- propably I do.
( Even more propable, I have bad EBCDIC->EBCDIC tables for my terminal.
  How did you suppose IBM creates "national" character sets ? )
( IBM creates standards ;-), but why totally new for every country ? )

Least troubles to us behind BITNET would come, if source postings
would be UUENCODE:d with "BITNET compatible" UUENCODE, that is:
letters, numbers and limited set of special characters are allowed.
They go thru nicely.  There has been discussion about this recently.
(Either on this MINIX-list or on INFO-HAMS)

Idea of "Kermit Batch Mode Transfer" isn't too bad.  But as it would be
"Yet Another F.T.P.", maybe we still should stick on UU**CODE.

   / Matti Aarnio
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Mr. Matti E. Aarnio; University of Turku; Wihuri Physical laboratory;|
|                      SF-20500 TURKU; FINLAND   (Phone:+358-21-645917)|
| BITNET: FYS-MA at FINTUVM                                (( GMT+2 )) |
| Internet: FYS-MA%FINTUVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
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