edstrom%UNCAEDU.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.EDU (08/21/87)
In article <1804@vice.TEK.COM> dougg@vice.TEK.COM (Doug Grant) writes: > For those who say "but too much bandwidth would be used for > 64-bit characters!" I say hang on - fiber optic communications > are coming! I'm one of those who find 64 bit characters unacceptable just because they would choke the wires. The other arguments against the idea are as good but this is enoug. Fiber optic communication is comming but no one will say when or for how much. When it does all of those 9600 baud modems would look like 1200 baud terminals and 1200 baud modems would.... well, its too ugly to think about. A standard 64 bit character would cost billions impliment. Besides, its overkill. Single characters are relatively unimportant. The rare occasions where one changes font in the middle of a word are so few and far between that I can't remember the last time I missed that feature. I could see something like that at the word or sentence level. Perhaps define a data type called "form_string" whose first 4 or 8 bytes would be formatting informatrl-Cr