bormanp (05/11/83)
Relay-Version:version B 2.10 gamma 4/3/83; site mhuxt.UUCP Message-ID:<950@stolaf.UUCP> Date:Tue, 10-May-83 17:47:38 EDT There is one thing you forget. Many a terminal have hard tabs set to 8 (like H19's). Am I supposed to ignore this and waste my time sending out spaces? So some of you arn't happy with a tab stop at 8 and I don't like mustard on my hamburgers. I don't see Mac & Dons switching to hamburgers without mustard, why should the world go to tab stops not set to 8? (And 8 is a nice number, 2^3, 80/10, 3+5, etc). -Paul R Borman -St. Olaf College -ihnp4!stolaf!bormanp (But since ihnp4 has a cold right now) -ihps3!stolaf!bormanp
jim (05/11/83)
Don't be so quick to judge! The latest ANSI/ASCII does take advantage of all 8 bits, and has for 5 years or so. All of the functions you suggest are supported by ASCII. The problem is that no terminal manufacturers or operating systems support the current ascii standard. Have you ever wondered why the vt100 functions all start out with ESC-[ ? That sequence is used to indicate that the following code is to be interpreted as having the eighth bit on, and is used by those poor terminals and systems that are incapable of using the eighth bit. I'm afraid I don't have references handy, but I'm sure someone out there will know the full story.