minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) (01/23/87)
Ray Butterworth (decvax!watmath!rbutterworth) points out an interesting problem with the ANSI standard -- that the "accent grave" and "apostrophe" characters are being imaged as left and right quotes by certain terminals and printers. The confusion about the 096 character is real. Unfortunately, the ASCII (ANSI X3.4) standard has had two names for the 096 character: ACCENT GRAVE and LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK in the 1968, the 1977 and the 1986 versions. This is NOT a change in the actual ANSI standard. However, it appears to be a change when systems and terminals start to implement proportionally spaced fonts, instead of mono-spaced fonts. In mono-spaced fonts, an ACCENT GRAVE and a LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK look identical. However, in a proportionally spaced font, the LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK looks like a 180-degree rotated comma. In actual usage, since the right hand side of the code table has fully formed accent letters, the need for a separate ACCENT GRAVE is disappearing. Similarly the 039 character has had three names in the ANSI standard (1968, 1977, and 1986): APOSTROPHE, RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK, and ACCENT ACUTE. Now that the right hand side (181) has ACCENT ACUTE, we can forget about the third name for 039. Again, in mono-spacing fonts, APOSTROPHE can be shown vertical or slanted. Slanting it to the right means that it can also serve as the RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK. In proportionally-spaced fonts, APOSTROPHE and RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK often look identical (like a raised comma). Note: this note does not represent the position of Digital Equipment Corporation. Martin Minow decvax!minow