einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/14/91)
I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!! Why? It does not allow me to type the Icelandic characters as I would normally!!!! Instead I have to remember their ALT numbers and use the ALT-numeric-keypad trick to enter them. Which is *NOT* good enough for our twenty special icelandic characters!!! Otherwise it looked like a usable editor, but not now. I have erased all copy of it that I have access to. SHAME!!!! When will some people learn????? (if you don't know what I mean, just read my .signature (especially the last line!) -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (06/14/91)
In article <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: >I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to >c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!! I agree - programs like this are totally unusable. They may be easy to patch, to allow proper 8-bit operation, but who cares... Anybody who writes a 7-bit PC program is clearly not a competent programmer - so why bother wasting time on their programs. As it is, the program is just a waste of disk space.... Just think about it - an editor which does not allow the entry of 30% of the letters in your alphabet ? or should I say: n edito wic does not llow te enty of 30% of te lettes in you lpbet ? -frisk
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (06/15/91)
In article <3246@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: : >I agree - programs like this are totally unusable. They may be easy to : >As it is, the program is just a waste of disk space.... > >Just think about it - an editor which does not allow the entry of 30% of >the letters in your alphabet ? Having looked into so many programs in moderating garbo archives, I can corroborate the concept that a significant portion of everything is crap. Yes, seriously. The number of badly written programs, weak or missing documentations, and useless on cryptic user interfaces is unbounded. It is not possible to check everything, but I try to have some sort of a quality control on garbo, and not accept disgrace-quality programs. I highly appreciate the work that Bill does, but I think that occasionally the c.b.i.p sieve leaks noticeably. With Bill's workload I understand. This is an observation, certainly not a flame. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) (06/15/91)
From article <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, by einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason): > > I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to > c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!! > > Why? It does not allow me to type the Icelandic characters as I would > normally!!!! We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country. If we all knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters. ALed provides ten macros of the form ALT-0 through ALT-9. Evidently that's not enough. What would be enough? The documentation suggested that custom versions could be provided, and also that support would be given even if the shareware fee had not been paid. Instead of throwing out ALed and complaining to the net, which can't help, it might have been better to apply to the author. By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture. Marty marty@hoqax.att.com hoqax!marty Martin B. Brilliant (Winnertech Corporation)
df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) (06/15/91)
In article <foo>, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: > In article <bar> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: > >I agree - programs like this are totally unusable. They may be easy to > : > >As it is, the program is just a waste of disk space.... > >Just think about it - an editor which does not allow the entry of 30% of > >the letters in your alphabet ? And, In article <foobar> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: # Otherwise it looked like a usable editor, but not now. This is rediculous -- just because something doesn't suit *your* needs doesn't mean that it's "a waste of disk space". What an egocentric view -- perhaps the author doesn't care if his program is used by whiners in the frozen north. One of you even said that it looked like a useable editor, but just because it lacks a feature you want, that perhaps isn't needed by the target audience of the programmer, it is basically trash. The author's note said: Even though this is "shareware", the fee is only for an upgrade and custom versions. I will give support to anyone using it (As long as they call during reasonable hours <grin>). I just like to hear from the people who use it. That's about as reasonable as you can hope for, in my mind. Did you call him up or mail to him, asking if he might change it? The moderator said that it was "a reasonably useful package for light editing needs." He didn't mention anything about it being a panacea for all editing woes. Perhaps you should flame the moderator, not the author, for not telling you about the 8th bit stuff. I think you should stop complaining, though, and try some constructive criticism, or write your own editor that does what you want. Personally, I think it looks like a fine editing program -- but even if I hated it, what good would flaming it here do me? > Having looked into so many programs in moderating garbo archives, I > can corroborate the concept that a significant portion of everything > is crap. Yes, seriously. The number of badly written programs, > weak or missing documentations, and useless on cryptic user > interfaces is unbounded. It is not possible to check everything, > but I try to have some sort of a quality control on garbo, and not > accept disgrace-quality programs. I highly appreciate the work that > Bill does, but I think that occasionally the c.b.i.p sieve leaks > noticeably. With Bill's workload I understand. This is an > observation, certainly not a flame. Most of the programs posted are free; I think it's true usually that you get what you pay for. Documentation and user interfaces are the two most commonly fouled up things in a program; however, did you even try this program? Were you talking about this program, echoing what others had said about it, or just complaining in general? -- dan
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) (06/15/91)
Instead of complaining about the lack of 8th bit support in various programs, how about supplying authors with some sample text files and a small program which configures their computer to GENERATE AND DISPLAY this text (or alternatively, instructions on how to do it by installing the needed device drivers which are supplied with MS-DOS). The ball is in your court, 8th bit users. Give us the tools we need so we can SEE what you need! Contact me via e-mail for uploading instructions to SIMTEL20. Keith -- Keith Petersen Maintainer of the MSDOS, MISC and CP/M archives at SIMTEL20 [192.88.110.20] Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil or w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu Uucp: uunet!umich!vela!w8sdz BITNET: w8sdz@OAKLAND
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (06/16/91)
In article <27098@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: >In article <foo>, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: >> Having looked into so many programs in moderating garbo archives, I >> can corroborate the concept that a significant portion of everything >> is crap. Yes, seriously. The number of badly written programs, : > Most of the programs posted are free; I think it's true usually that >you get what you pay for. Documentation and user interfaces are the >two most commonly fouled up things in a program; however, did you even >try this program? Were you talking about this program, echoing what >others had said about it, or just complaining in general? Definitely complaining in general, or rather summing up my hopefully longstanding experiences with shareware and freeware programs with regard of this aspect. Yes, I naturally know that much of what is distributed is free, but it grieves me to see so much programming effort wasted sometimes only because the lack of the final polish. My point here is to try to draw my fellow programmers' attention to this problem, not to castigate anyone. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >From article <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, by einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason): >> >> I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to >> c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!! : >By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive >disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture. : Now, now. Let's not overdo things. Finding fault (true or imagined) with some editor has no repercussions one way or the other at least on my views on the Icelandic culture. Let's keep matters in perspective, ok. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country. If we all >knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic >editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters. I don't know how Icelandic characters are entered, but if they're entered the same way as Finnish characters, there are keys dedicated to them on the keyboard, just as for the letters A through Z, e.g. o-with-dots is by the L key, and a-with-a-circle-on-top is by the P key. The problem is that these keys generate (or their scan codes are turned into) characters with the 8th bit turned on. If I understand correctly, ALed (and a number of other programs) either mask the 8th bit away or won't take such characters as input at all. There is no need for an editor to offer a special way of entering these characters. The normal way is quite adequate. >By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive >disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture. By the way, the seemingly endless stream of 7-bit-only software that refuses to accept Finnish text as input gives me a poor impression of the US culture. Or rather, it would, if I didn't know better. -- Lars Wirzenius wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi
mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) (06/16/91)
From article <1991Jun15.172306.19724@uwasa.fi>, by ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi): > In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >>From article <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, by einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason): >>> I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to >>> c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!! > : >>By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive >>disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture. > : > > Now, now. Let's not overdo things. Finding fault (true or > imagined) with some editor has no repercussions one way or the other > at least on my views on the Icelandic culture. Let's keep matters > in perspective, ok. Perspective. That's what we need. Timo, when I think there's something wrong with a program, but it's not all bad, first I ask whether other users know something about it I don't know, and then I ask the author. I don't call it crap, and I don't throw it in the wastebasket. Very often the authors of shareware are doing it for fun, and they like to hear comments and suggestions, and like to be helpful. Asking the author often gives results. The reason I attributed the complaining to culture is that not just one Icelander complained, but others joined in, and none suggested that throwing it away and complaining on the net was inappropriate. In my perspective, when the author seems likely to be helpful, it's inappropriate. By the way, I looked for Icelandic code pages in my MS-DOS 3.3 manual and they have none. Is MS-DOS crap? (Perspective...) Marty marty@hoqax.att.com hoqax!marty Martin B. Brilliant (Winnertech Corporation)
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (06/16/91)
In article <27098@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: > This is rediculous -- just because something doesn't suit *your* >needs doesn't mean that it's "a waste of disk space". What an >egocentric view -- perhaps the author doesn't care if his program >is used by whiners in the frozen north. No, he obviously did not expect it to be used anywhere but in the US - well, maybe people in Australia and New Zealand can use editors which do not support 8-bit characters on a PC, but the rest of the world cannot. Even the British use one character in the upper half of the character set - the pound sign. What would you say if I wrote (and posted) an editor which did not allow you to use C,Q,W or Z - after all, we don't use those letters, so nobody else could possibly have any use for them, right ? >... but just because it lacks a feature you want, that perhaps isn't >needed by the target audience of the programmer, it is basically trash. Feature ? The ability of PC programs to support 8 bit characters is not a feature - it is an essential requirement. Any program which does not is trash! >I think it looks like a fine editing program -- but even if I hated it, >what good would flaming it here do me? Well, my reason for flaming is simple - perhaps I might reach the ears of some American programmers (well, nobody else writes 7-bit PC programs) who are not yet aware that this is an 8-bit world :-) -frisk
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/16/91)
In article <27098@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: > This is rediculous -- just because something doesn't suit *your* >needs doesn't mean that it's "a waste of disk space". What an Well, think of a book in your favorite language. This is a great book, but it has one bad look. There are *NONE* of the following letters in the book: 'a', 'A', 'e', 'E', 'r', 'R', 's', 'S' I am sure you could read it, but it is not enjoying. You would have to guess where you should put those letters. Now think of another thing. Let us imagine that you are a writer writing in a language that *does* contain the above letters. Suddenly one day you get a great idea for a book (or letter or article...) and you sit down and start to write. What would you do if you would find your pen (typewriter, pencil...) writing everything you want *EXECPT* for the above letters? Even if the language *requires* "aAeErRsS" ???? >egocentric view -- perhaps the author doesn't care if his program >is used by whiners in the frozen north. One of you even said that >it looked like a useable editor, but just because it lacks a feature It was I who wrote that. Let me tell you one thing. If you were a local person here in Iceland, you wouldn't call us whiners. Then you would understand my comment. >criticism, or write your own editor that does what you want. Personally, (now something on the lighter side of life) I just might write my own editor. What should I call it? VIMACS? :-) :-) >I think it looks like a fine editing program -- but even if I hated it, >what good would flaming it here do me? (Humm) Perhaps the message that we *must* have the 8th bit available would reach more programmers? I only hope that this has started someone to think and reconsider if they are going to write an editor?? -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.222200.26041@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: : >Perspective. That's what we need. Timo, when I think there's something >wrong with a program, but it's not all bad, first I ask whether other users >know something about it I don't know, and then I ask the author. I don't >call it crap, and I don't throw it in the wastebasket. Very often the >authors of shareware are doing it for fun, and they like to hear comments >and suggestions, and like to be helpful. Asking the author often gives >results. Agreed, certainly. But please also note that we have a real danger of entering in a flame contest when who said, meant, and did what gets this merrily tangled. (Followups thus to alt.flame). >The reason I attributed the complaining to culture is that not just >one Icelander complained, but others joined in, and none suggested >that throwing it away and complaining on the net was inappropriate. >In my perspective, when the author seems likely to be helpful, it's >inappropriate. Agreed and understood. But it still does not cast a sinister shadows on the Icelandic culture in my mind. >By the way, I looked for Icelandic code pages in my MS-DOS 3.3 manual >and they have none. Is MS-DOS crap? (Perspective...) My compliments for the cleverly constructed insult. P.S. How about initiating a dispassionate discussion about the issue of these upper ascii problems say in comp.editors. Anyone? ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
ceb@csli.Stanford.EDU (Charles Buckley) (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com>, mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: From article <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, by einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason): > I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to > c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!! > Why? It does not allow me to type the Icelandic characters as I would > normally!!!! We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country. If we all knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters. One shouldn't have to know, any more than one should have to know about the other national keyboard conventions in use around the world. MSDOS has a facility in it to deal with that, and it need simply be respected. ALed provides ten macros of the form ALT-0 through ALT-9. Evidently that's not enough. What would be enough? The whole keyboard (as with Cyrillic). Someone's home-grown Alt-tricks can really slow you down when you are used to hitting, say, the US semicolon key for an accented e. Only MicroEmacs does it right (that I know of). Of course, the Alt-tricks are different for each new program. By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture. That's ok. The seemingly universal built-in parochialism demonstrated in so many American-written programs (and American-designed hard goods) practically wiped us out in the export market for many years, and has given foreigners a poor impression of our culture for quite some time now. I have heard Germans call us culture-colonialists.
wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) (06/16/91)
In article <7270@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil writes: >Instead of complaining about the lack of 8th bit support in various >programs, how about supplying authors with some sample text files and >a small program which configures their computer to GENERATE AND >DISPLAY this text (or alternatively, instructions on how to do it by >installing the needed device drivers which are supplied with MS-DOS). Good point. Education is better than flaming. The sample text files can easily be generated with a small program that outputs all charaters in the range 0..255 or 32..255 (if you don't want to handle control characters, you might want to, though). Since the PC display hardware can show all of the characters, there shouldn't be any need for configuration of that part. You might need to output some control characters directly into screen memory, however. Output to printers and other hardware usually requires some kind of translation. The input configuration is also solved already in MS-DOS (at least it is in all the versions I have used, but I don't know if these solutions are available in the US). In earlier versions it is called keybxx.com, where xx is the country code, e.g. su for Finland (BTW, su comes from the Finnish name, Suomi), uk for the UK, etc. These programs stay resident and catch the keyboard interrupt and modify the translation of keyboard scan codes. In later versions (4.0 I think), there is only one program, keyb, which takes the country code as an argument. The details can be found in the manual. Of course, you can also use the Alt-keypad method (press Alt, enter three digit code on the keypad, release Alt). This is awkward, but doesn't require you to learn a new keyboard layout. There are some things that need to be considered besides the entry and display of 'graphics characters'. First, since editors usually have commands that operate on words, it would be very nice to have it recognize all of our characters as letters. Second, it would also be nice if the program would know how to do case insensitive character comparisons for our characters as well. Third, all of this should be configurable. Anyone thinking about how to handle 8 bit characters should take a look at MicroEmacs (3.10), which handles the problem pretty well. It's not easy, but it's a good way to get friends abroad. -- Lars Wirzenius wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (06/16/91)
In article <7270@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil writes: >Instead of complaining about the lack of 8th bit support in various >programs, how about supplying authors with some sample text files and >a small program which configures their computer to GENERATE AND >DISPLAY this text. A good idea. In fact, I have written exactly such a program - a device driver which redefines the keyboard to produce Icelandic characters, and redefines the character set (VGA reguired) to use CP 861 instead of CP 437. This program was originally written because people here felt that the standard solution was too expensive in RAM (all the MODE CON prepare etc.. commands used 30K of RAM). Any program which works with this will work practically anywhere in the world (excluding countries which use a 16-bit character set), which makes it ideal for testing. I'll upload this program to SIMTEL as soon as I have written some documentation for it. -frisk
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country. If we all >knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic >editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters. Huh ? What do you mean ? There is nothing special required to allow the entry of our characters. We have a special driver which translates the scan codes into the correct 8-bit codes. All that is needed is that the software stops assuming that alphabetic characters in the upper half of the character set must be an input error, and stops taking a special action to prevent the entry of our characters. I have had to patch an incredible number of programs, which assume this, and they are not $10 shareware programs - some of them are quite well known. A few examples: IBM LOGO: I spent two days on patching this program before I found the problem which prevented the entry of characters above 127. I only had to change one bit to make it work - the author had written something which went like this: CALL get_character_from_keyboard CMP AL,20H ; is it a control character ? JL check_if_cr ; yes, check if it is a CR CALL normal_char See the problem ? JL is a signed compare-and-branch instruction, which means that characters above 127 are treated as negative numbers. Changing it to JB (a one-bit change) solved this. PC/TCP from FTP software: The authors of this program were aware of problems regarding other languages than English, and other character sets than CP 437. They attempted to provide solutions, but unfortunately they did not work. I patched the program to make it usable, and have contacted the authors, so maybe the situation will improve in the future. One of the problem was that the program takes over the keyboard, disabling any installed keyboard driver. This is generally an absolute no-no if the program is to work anywhere but in the US, but PC/TCP provided a way to redefine individual keys. Unfortunately, their solution was useless to us - our language contains a number of accented wovels, where you first hit the accent key, and then a,e,i,o,u or y. This is generally not a problem - our keyboard driver handles this - generating the correct 8-bit scan code when the second character is pressed. Two scan codes - one character. They were not aware of this (I was even asked what I meant by "dead accent mark") and the program could not handle it. The second problem was when incoming characters were translated from one character set to another. They knew that PC users did not all use the same character set, so they provided a user-definable 256 byte table for mapping the characters. Problem solved ? No - as it was implemented, the mapping was totally useless. You see, before the user-definable table was used, the program would use an internal table which mapped the characters from Dec Multinational to CP 437. (Even if we assume that everybody uses Dec Multinational, which is almost, but not quite identical to ISO 8859/1, this presents a serious problem.) Assume for examle that I want to send the character 0xa1, (Upper case acute A). This character does not exist in CP 437, so it is mapped (by the internal table) to its closest equivalent - the 'A' character. Then the user-defined table can be used to map it to the right character in my character set. But this is now impossible. Even though the two character sets in use here (CP 861 and CP 850) contain "Upper case acute A", the information has been lost - the character is now just a plain 'A'. The problems were easy to solve - only took a few hours of patching, but this is a typical example of what we have to face. SUN Telnet: Two problems - the program would strip the 8th bit off characters. I think the code went something like this: INT 16H ; get character AND AL,7FH ; let's get rid of the 8th bit - we don't ; use it, so nobody else could possibly ; have any use for it. Second problem - no character set translation - solved by patching in a translation routine, to convert between ISO 8859/1 and CP 861. This is not an isolated Icelandic problem - users in the other Nordic countries and much of Europe have the same problem, if they are trying to use this program to communicate with 8-bit Unix machines, for example. I could go on listing American programs which range from being totally useless (I remember something called XYwrite which took over the keyboard interrupt, disabling our keyboard drivers) to programs which are almost usable, like dBASE (which allows us to use 19 out of 20 of our special characters, but the examples above should give you an idea. The Icelandic market is small - very small indeed - the best selling program here has only sold 1500 copies, but any program which does not work here because of character set problems will not work in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France or practically nowhere but in the US (well, maybe in a few other English speaking countries). Any programmer which excludes him/her from a large segment of the world is (IMHO) nuts! We are getting tired of American programs (as I have said before, nobody else makes this mistake) which put in extra code to make their programs useless to us, such as masking the 8th bit). However, there are companies which have never given us any problems. The folks at Word Perfect, Microsoft, Borland and many other companies know what they are doing - well, at least in this respect :-) I have said it before, and I will say it again - "This is an 8-bit world". -frisk (sitting in front of an 8-bit PC, connected to an 8-bit Unix machine, using an 8-bit terminal emulator, and using an 8-bit editor to write this message in an 8-bit News program).
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/16/91)
In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country. If we all >knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic >editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters. Icelandic characters are entered just like all others are. We press a key. That keypress reaches a translation program (whether it is device-driver or TSR program) and that translation program returns the correct scan code *and* extended-ASCII code for the character. The main difference is that our icelandic characters are located in the upper half of the character set. (The 8th bit is turned on!) Therefore, programs that mask the 8th bit, also disallows our icelandic characters. >By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive >disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture. By the way, the stream of 7-bit programs from the USA gives me a poor impression of the intelligence of USA programmers. Some products are great and works fine. BUT then there are those morons that *insist* on masking that bl*ody 8th bit!! -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (06/17/91)
In article <3245@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: | | I am sorry to say it, but that tiny editor, ALED, that was posted to | c.b.i.p some time ago, goes straight to the waste basket!!!!! | | Why? It does not allow me to type the Icelandic characters as I would | normally!!!! Instead I have to remember their ALT numbers and use the | ALT-numeric-keypad trick to enter them. | Which is *NOT* good enough for our twenty special icelandic characters!!! I thought it left all 8 bits alone in the file. You may have to use sequences to enter them, but the problem could be that whatever maps your keyboard is not mapping for the editor. Not having the icelandic character set handy I didn't check. I'm familiar with icelandic characters, some post to usenet ;-) -- bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen) sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (06/17/91)
In article <1991Jun14.210757.13150@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: | Having looked into so many programs in moderating garbo archives, I | can corroborate the concept that a significant portion of everything | is crap. Yes, seriously. The number of badly written programs, | weak or missing documentations, and useless on cryptic user | interfaces is unbounded. It is not possible to check everything, | but I try to have some sort of a quality control on garbo, and not | accept disgrace-quality programs. I highly appreciate the work that | Bill does, but I think that occasionally the c.b.i.p sieve leaks | noticeably. The pas/fail is done on the basis of whether a program is useful or entertaining, not based on standards for human interface. If a program seems useful to a number of readers, as the editor in question, the fact that it won't handle special characters is regretable, but I don't feel that I should deprive readers who find it useful of the chance to evaluate and use it. Only about 10% of what goes out stays here in my archives for BBS access. I apply another standard. There are a lot of readers, and I'm happy if a few thousand can use any given item. My standards go up relative to size, too, which is why I waited so many versions and patches before gcc went out. | noticeably. With Bill's workload I understand. This is an | observation, certainly not a flame. No offense taken, I get very little positive feedback. If people like something they show it by being quiet. I try to look at requests here, but if I get 50 bad reviews on something, out of 90,000 readers or so, I can live with that. I reject about 25% of everything I get, if you ever want to see *real* crap. -- bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen) sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) (06/17/91)
In article <19965@csli.Stanford.EDU> ceb@csli.Stanford.EDU (Charles Buckley) writes: | That's ok. The seemingly universal built-in parochialism demonstrated | in so many American-written programs (and American-designed hard | goods) practically wiped us out in the export market for many years, | and has given foreigners a poor impression of our culture for quite | some time now. I have heard Germans call us culture-colonialists. Any one who wants to make a profit aims for a given market. For years the US manufactures aimed at the US market. It's a big target, and easier to hit that any of the European countries. Now the US manufacturers are aiming some of their products at other markets, and that's a marketing decision, too. When someone gives something away and offers to help change it if contacted at a reasonable hour, that's about as decent as you can get. The software was intended for the US market, and was not aimed for tiny isolated groups of people with particular needs. Look at the population of the US and Iceland, and you will see the relative size of the market. I suspect there are more left-handed color-blind midgets in the US that people who register software in Iceland. That's nothing against Iceland, but it is a small market. I note that frisk sends out shareware tailored to the US market, and I don't think that makes him insensitive to the needs of Icelanders, just a good businessman. Since there are more computer users (in all countries) who are able to use English than any other language, it makes sense to aim at that market first. Note that periyoda was in English, although written by a Hungarian living in Switzerland. No Icelandic or Cyrilic support in that one, either. Could we stop bashing the software because it doesn't support every possible market and save bandwidth and hard feelings? -- bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen) sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/17/91)
In article <4089@sixhub.UUCP> davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: > I thought it left all 8 bits alone in the file. You may have to use >sequences to enter them, but the problem could be that whatever maps >your keyboard is not mapping for the editor. Not having the icelandic >character set handy I didn't check. I'm familiar with icelandic >characters, some post to usenet ;-) I did not try if it left all 8 bits alone in a saved file or wrote them back out. What I did was: I entered a short sentence that contains all our icelandic characters : (without using the alt-numeric-keypad-trick) "kaemi n'y \"oxi h'er ykist thj'ofum v'il og 'adrepa" What I got was: "kmi n xi hr ykist jfum vl og drepa" Which is clearly not good enough. I next tried to enter some of our icelandic characters with the ALT-numberic-keypad-trick. That worked. But what pissed me off was the fact that icelandic characters are not *directly* supported!! I had to work a trick to get them in. I would have had to press four keys to get our icelandic characters, instead of only two. (These two have the advantage of being on the main keyboard section, so one does *not* have to move the fingers too much.) We frisk@rhi.hi.is, (Fridrik Skulason), have talked about it and frisk will upload to simtel a copy of an icelandic keyboard driver. This keyboard driver is not only a keyboard driver, but it contains the character matrixes for our (beloved :-) icelandic characters. (Requires VGA) He told me that he would upload it as soon as he had the documentation ready. I suggested that he should show the keyboard layout as well. I don't know how that ALED reads the keyboard, but it seem to me to be something like this: int 16h cmp al,7fh ja error ; Nobody uses the 8th bit, so why should I??? .... This is clearly the Wrong way of reading the keyboard. We frisk could tell you some horror stories about that drasted 8th bit. Patching programs, fixing and building new internal tables, etc..... Note that this is not a flame to the moderator. Bill has done a great job and I hope he will keep it up. Instead, my original posting was ment to bring this to the attention of those programmers that *mask* the 8th bit. (Shame on you.) And one horror story at the end: Imagine what will happen when Unicode emerges as a standard in computers communications? (I am not the right person to talk about unicode, since I don't know much about it as of yet.) Unicode is a 16 bit character set. Imagine then, you not only are not allowed to mask the 8th bit, but you also must leave the 9th-16th bit alone. In the hope that I have managed to convert someone, EinarI -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
kooijman@duteca2.et.tudelft.nl (Richard Kooijman) (06/17/91)
mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country. If we all >knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic >editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters. >By the way, this seeming universal expression of counterproductive >disgust from Iceland gives me a poor impression of Icelandic culture. Well, they were only making a point here. Their are many other countries where this editor is unusable for the same reasons. So let them complain, the attitude of programmers that English speaking countries are the only ones to program for gives me a poor impression of them. Richard.
kooijman@duteca2.et.tudelft.nl (Richard Kooijman) (06/17/91)
mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >By the way, I looked for Icelandic code pages in my MS-DOS 3.3 manual >and they have none. Is MS-DOS crap? (Perspective...) You really want to know? Ok, it is. Sorry ... Richard.
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (06/17/91)
In article <4090@sixhub.UUCP> davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: : > The pas/fail is done on the basis of whether a program is useful or >entertaining, not based on standards for human interface. If a program Agreed, and naturally condoned (for whatever it is worth). Just one detail to avoid (furher?) misunderstandings on this part of the subject. User interface is certainly not the _only_ aspect I use in my own moderating decisions at garbo. But it has an important bearing on these decisions. On the other hand there is no need to deny that fact that your and my selection criteria seem to differ at occasions. (But then, again, why shouldn't they). >seems useful to a number of readers, as the editor in question, the fact >that it won't handle special characters is regretable, but I don't feel >that I should deprive readers who find it useful of the chance to >evaluate and use it. I must blame myself for being unclear. Perhaps I should have changed the subject header when making my comment trying to draw our fellow programmers' attention to quality control aspect. I was meaning to speak in general. I wasn't making a comment on ALED one way or the other. (Well, be that as may, at least an interesting discussion has ensued around ALED). ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
ej@rci.dk (Erik W. Jeppesen) (06/17/91)
davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes: >I thought it left all 8 bits alone in the file. You may have to use >sequences to enter them, but .... ^^^ ^^^ and in another posting: >... the fact that it won't handle special characters is regretable, but ... ^^^^^^^ The letter 'q' is practically not used in danish. How would you like to have to enter this 'special' letter as ALT-1-3-3 ? I don't mean to flame Bill, but when a highly respected american as Wm E. Davidsen Jr expresses his view in this way, it shows the problem. As others have pointed out, this is not an isolated icelandic problem. Nearly all european countries have characters besides the letters a-z and there isn't anything special about them. I couldn't care less if a shareware editor didn't support 8-bit characters (I simply won't use it), but it is a general problem with programs originated in the US. WordPerfect and others have learnt it (the hard way). We don't need any special handling for special characters. The keyboard driver will let us type them, so just leave them alone. That will solve most problems. If you want to be real nice, use the tables that DOS supplies for case-mapping and collation. Thanks for reading, -- Erik W. Jeppesen ej@rci.dk +45 42 65 80 00 RC International, Lautrupbjerg 1, DK-2750 Ballerup, Denmark
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (06/17/91)
In article <1991Jun15.222200.26041@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >By the way, I looked for Icelandic code pages in my MS-DOS 3.3 manual >and they have none. Is MS-DOS crap? (Perspective...) Well, this may be a "cleverly constructed insult", as Timo Sami said, but you have just been looking in the wrong manuals....CP 861 is specifically designed for Icelandic, but we can also use CP 850. But why bother with this - the software does not have to do anything special to allow our characters - all we ask for is that programmers do not put in extra code to prevent us from using our language. -frisk
roth@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Pete Roth) (06/17/91)
In article <3246@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: > >or should I say: n edito wic does not llow te enty of 30% of te lettes in >you lpbet ? > >-frisk Wow! "For lack of a bit, a character was lost. For lack of a character, an editor was lost. For lack of an editor, ... Etc." Thanks for the entertaining thread...and you won't see any of MY 7-bit programs, either! regards, pete - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Peter N Roth roth@oasys.dt.navy.mil Objects in this office are closer than they appear.
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/17/91)
Someone sent me mail, asking for a demo for reading the key.
Following are a short examples in C. For simplicity I presume that
'getchar' returns 8 bit clean character from the keyboard.
Here is a short code fragment in C to read a key from the keyboard:
(this is the way it *should* be done)
int read_a_key_from_keyboard()
{
return (getchar()); /* this is ok. It leaves the 8th bit alone */
}
Now, here is a fragment that could fit Aled. I am sorry to say that this type
of coding is *much* too *much* common:
(this is the way it *SHOULD NOT* be done.)
int read_a_key_from_keyboard_the_way_the_americans_do_it_bad()
{
return (getchar() & 0x7f); /* this one is not ok. It masks the */
/* 8th bit off. USELESS to us */
/* Icelanders!!!!!!!! */
}
(frisk posted a good list of what should be done for foreign support.) I don't
know the article number, but this, at least, is the beginning of programming
for foreign countries.
--
Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag
UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!"
Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: ALED goes to the wastebasket here in Iceland
Summary:
Expires:
References: <1991Jun15.172306.19724@uwasa.fi> <1991Jun15.222200.26041@cbfsb.att.com> <1991Jun16.004537.21920@uwasa.fi>
Sender:
Reply-To: einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason)
Followup-To:
Distribution:
Organization: University of Iceland (RHI)
Keywords:
Someone sent me mail, asking for a demo for reading the key.
Following are a short examples in C. For simplicity I presume that
'getchar' returns 8 bit clean character from the keyboard.
Here is a short code fragment in C to read a key from the keyboard:
(this is the way it *should* be done)
int read_a_key_from_keyboard()
{
return (getchar()); /* this is ok. It leaves the 8th bit alone */
}
Now, here is a fragment that could fit Aled. I am sorry to say that this type
of coding is *much* too *much* common:
(this is the way it *SHOULD NOT* be done.)
int read_a_key_from_keyboard_the_way_the_americans_do_it_bad()
{
return (getchar() & 0x7f); /* this one is not ok. It masks the */
/* 8th bit off. USELESS to us */
/* Icelanders!!!!!!!! */
}
(frisk posted a good list of what should be done for foreign support.) I don't
know the article number, but this, at least, is the beginning of programming
for foreign countries.
--
Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag
UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!"
Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!bruceb@informix.com (Bruce Barr) (06/17/91)
In article <27098@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: Inclusion deleted deleted > This is rediculous -- just because something doesn't suit *your* >needs doesn't mean that it's "a waste of disk space". What an >egocentric view -- perhaps the author doesn't care if his program >is used by whiners in the frozen north. One of you even said that >it looked like a useable editor, but just because it lacks a feature >you want, that perhaps isn't needed by the target audience of the >programmer, it is basically trash. I will jump into this one, since it involves something I am thouroughly familiar with, even though I am NOT from the 'FROZEN NORTH.' The ego- centric view expressed is yours. Just because your language needs are supported, then forget anybody else. Would the editor be acceptable if it didn't allow you to enter the letter E? How about a less used letter like Z or X? Would you be keeping it around to use for those times when you didn't need to type those letters in? If people want the widest possible audience for the program, they need to keep in mind people outside of the U.S.A. Shareware is, at least in theory, a way of MARKETING a product. You are limiting your programs growth in the FASTEST GROWING MARKET if it isn't 8 bit clean. Flame away, but this is a soapbox I stand on all the time. Bruce Barr
bruceb@informix.com (Bruce Barr) (06/17/91)
In article <7270@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil writes: >Instead of complaining about the lack of 8th bit support in various >programs, how about supplying authors with some sample text files and >a small program which configures their computer to GENERATE AND >DISPLAY this text (or alternatively, instructions on how to do it by >installing the needed device drivers which are supplied with MS-DOS). > >The ball is in your court, 8th bit users. Give us the tools we need >so we can SEE what you need! Contact me via e-mail for uploading >instructions to SIMTEL20. > >Keith I am not aware of anything that does this sort of thing, but I might cosider writing it. One problem is the lack of a universal automatic testing method available in DOS. <sigh> I have run into problems where merely displaying a file properly didn't test the whole problem. There were problems with entry of characters. Maybe only problems with certain modes of entry. Or if entry and display were ok, then printing was not possible. Anyway, I do this for a living (Internationalization) and will probably sit down and try to present some of the issues in a document of some sort. In the mean time, if there are any questions about this that anyone has, I will act as a clearing house for these issues, if anyone is interested. Cheers, BB
df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) (06/17/91)
In article <foo>, frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: > In article <bar> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: > What would you say if I wrote (and posted) an editor which did not allow > you to use C,Q,W or Z - after all, we don't use those letters, so nobody > else could possibly have any use for them, right ? I wouldn't use it, that's all. As other people say, a programmer writes for his or her audience; if you want to do just that, then that's your perogative. > >... but just because it lacks a feature you want, that perhaps isn't > >needed by the target audience of the programmer, it is basically trash. > Feature ? > The ability of PC programs to support 8 bit characters is not a feature - it > is an essential requirement. Any program which does not is trash! Trash to you, not to me, and not to tens of millions of PC users. I might, someday, use the 8th bit support of an editor, but I'm not holding my breath. Just like your editor you proposed above wouldn't be trash -- it might prove very useful to you (although you probably wouldn't want to use it to compose letters to post to the net :-)), but not to me. > >I think it looks like a fine editing program -- but even if I hated it, > >what good would flaming it here do me? > Well, my reason for flaming is simple - perhaps I might reach the ears of > some American programmers (well, nobody else writes 7-bit PC programs) who > are not yet aware that this is an 8-bit world :-) It might prove more useful to write to the author, and to write some nice article saying why it *is* important, like someone (you, perhaps? I didn't notice the author) did after all the flamage started. Perhaps if the author had said something like "well, I don't *care* if it masks the 8th bit", then you'd be more justified in your flame. IMHO, of course :-) You could certainly argue that your (and your compatriots) comments had an even greater audience, and that your point was made all the more clear by all the hubub. I don't think the ends justifies the means, tho... -- dan
df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) (06/17/91)
In article <foo>, einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: > In article <bar> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: > > This is rediculous -- just because something doesn't suit *your* > >needs doesn't mean that it's "a waste of disk space". What an > Well, think of a book in your favorite language. This is a great book, but > it has one bad look. There are *NONE* of the following letters in the > book: > 'a', 'A', 'e', 'E', 'r', 'R', 's', 'S' > I am sure you could read it, but it is not enjoying. You would have to > guess where you should put those letters. Well, it wouldn't be my "favorite language" then, would it? :-) > Now think of another thing. Let us imagine that you are a writer writing > in a language that *does* contain the above letters. Suddenly one day you > get a great idea for a book (or letter or article...) and you sit down and > start to write. What would you do if you would find your pen (typewriter, > pencil...) writing everything you want *EXECPT* for the above letters? > Even if the language *requires* "aAeErRsS" ???? The problem I see with your analogy is that if I was in that situation, and I had this faulty editor or pen or whatever, I would just use another one. I wouldn't blame the typewriter or program, I would just switch. I think if *all* programs and pens and typewriters were like what you described, then you'd have a much better case, although, perhaps, your language might not have developed in the same way, if no one could write it :-) > >egocentric view -- perhaps the author doesn't care if his program > >is used by whiners in the frozen north. One of you even said that > >it looked like a useable editor, but just because it lacks a feature > It was I who wrote that. Let me tell you one thing. If you were a local > person here in Iceland, you wouldn't call us whiners. Then you would > understand my comment. :-) Well, perhaps. If I was living in Iceland, perhaps I would have written to the author, or just dismissed the program as yet another ethnocentric program from those damn americans. I don't think I would have flamed the program, although who can tell a man's breaking point? :-) > >I think it looks like a fine editing program -- but even if I hated it, > >what good would flaming it here do me? > Perhaps the message that we *must* have the 8th bit available would reach > more programmers? > > I only hope that this has started someone to think and reconsider if they > are going to write an editor?? I only hope in the future, people will consider their methods of communication a bit more. The comment about "whining" I made may have been out of line (ok, it was :-)), but I still stand by the points I made. You called the program useless, and said "SHAME" to the author... I merely think it would have been more helpful to mail to the author and post your explanations (that you later posted), instead of getting into a flame war about how terrible american (and others, I guess) programs are. -- dan
jorgense@irisa.fr (Finn Jorgensen) (06/18/91)
As others have pointed out, the problem is not only with icelandic characters,
but almost any language other than english. When Bill Davidsen (forgetting
his apparently nordic origin) treats all these countries as "tiny isolated
groups of people with particular needs", he excludes what probably sums up to
a much greater market than the US. In France, we have exactly the same
problems as Einar and frisk. We don't ask software writers to take care of
our special codes, only to leave them alone. We have keyboard and screen-drivers
to do the translation as has been pointed out, but the old habit from the
days of RS232-connected terminals transmitting 7 bits plus parity (at that
time, we HAD to mask the 8th bit to avoid havoc) seems to hang on in the US.
When someone writes a program, he doesn't need to know what translates into
what, but only has to remember that, in most countries, 8-bit character codes
are needed. To test his program, he can enter any code above 127 and check
that it makes it through. I remember an example of a very nice program that
failed at one point : PFM (kind of point-and-shoot sort of shell). It handles
8-bit codes nicely apart from the <grave-accented e> that, before arriving
on-screen, gets stripped and becomes <line-feed> (looks awful on-screen).
All the other accented characters, as well as line-drawing chars, greek and
math symbols work fine.
I realize that word-searches and the like (advance word by word, etc...)
will work erratically, but this is usually less disturbing than not to be
able to type at all.
As concerns MS-DOS support of all these oddities, I find that (for a change)
they are handled quite transparently, which is all that I ask for.
No flames intended, especially towards B. Davidsen who does an excellent job
of providing us with software of varying (sometimes very good) quality, but
please dont forget that the US is a subset of the world and not the opposite.
When a non-american writes software, he writes for the whole world, why
shouldn't an american do likewise ?
finn bo jorgensen (yes, that is danish, but I happen to live in France)
jorgense@irisa.fr
mail : Jorgensen,
IFSIC, Universite de Rennes I,
Campus de Beaulieu,
35042 RENNES CEDEX
FRANCE
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) (06/18/91)
I think everyone is missing the main question. Why didn't the original complainer send a private e-mail to the author (whose address *was* provided), asking if he would please add 8th bit support to his editor. Instead of doing that, the complainer posted to the whole world that he was throwing the editor away because it didn't support the 8th bit. That was NOT fair to the author. You didn't give him a chance! Stop trying to make this a cultural issue. We all agree that 8th bit support is the modern approach. You'll get a lot better response by asking nicely than by flaming. By the way, I haven't received any sample text and/or exact instructions on how to configure a PC in the USA to allow authors to *see* what 8th bit users need. Instead, I've received messages saying that I should look in the MS-DOS manual and figure it out for myself. Can you blame authors for ignoring answers like that? Keith -- Keith Petersen Maintainer of the MSDOS, MISC and CP/M archives at SIMTEL20 [192.88.110.20] Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil or w8sdz@vela.acs.oakland.edu Uucp: uunet!umich!vela!w8sdz BITNET: w8sdz@OAKLAND
timr@gssc.UUCP (Tim Roberts) (06/18/91)
Regarding the Iceland flame debate: I am NOT an Icelander, but I also tend to discard in disgust any editor which trims off the 8th bit of ASCII characters. I call this "WordStar syndrome". I find myself upon occasion trying to do text-edit-like operations on binary files. Editors which take it upon themselves to eliminate 12% of the data in the file screw this operation in a BIG hurry. If I WANT to do an 8-to-7 bit trim, I'll write a 3 line C program to do it. Lesson To Be Learned: Text editor writers should keep all 8 bits of all characters. -- timr@gssc.gss.com Tim N Roberts, CCP Graphic Software Systems Beaverton, OR This is a very long palindrome. .emordnilap gnol yrev a si sihT
nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) (06/18/91)
In article <3257@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes:
By the way, the stream of 7-bit programs from the USA gives me a poor
impression of the intelligence of USA programmers.
Some products are great and works fine. BUT then there are those
morons that *insist* on masking that bl*ody 8th bit!!
Excuse me. I had thought that, since the 8th bit was unused by USASCII,
there would be no trouble using it for marking purposes, etc. Now I
find that it causes trouble with non-english alphabets. Why am I a moron
when I tried to make my program simpler and hence more reliable?
--
--russ <nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu> I'm proud to be a humble Quaker.
I am leaving the employ of Clarkson as of June 30. Hopefully this email
address will remain. If it doesn't, use nelson@gnu.ai.mit.edu.ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (06/18/91)
In article <27139@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: : > Trash to you, not to me, and not to tens of millions of PC users. >I might, someday, use the 8th bit support of an editor, but I'm not >holding my breath. Just like your editor you proposed above wouldn't : One thought on this, if I may. Don't you ever draw boxes with your editor. If you do, you need the 8-bit characters whatever your nationality. Likewise, don't you ever use any of the (scanty) mathematical symbols in the upper ascii. Even if the rest of the world is of little consequence to many U.S. programmers (if I've interpreted some of the arguments from the States correctly), why wouldn't this be a consideration in the 7-bit vs 8-bit dilemma. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
shaunc@gold.gvg.tek.com (Shaun Case) (06/18/91)
In article <3259@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: > >But why bother with this - the software does not have to do anything special to >allow our characters - all we ask for is that programmers do not put in extra >code to prevent us from using our language. > But... > In article <NELSON.91Jun16163116@sun.clarkson.edu> nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu (aka NELSON@CLUTX.BITNET) writes: > >How about it, you non-English speakers? Give us English-speaking programmers > >a break and tell us what we need to do to get our programs to work on your > >computers... > > Here is a short list... > > 1) Don't mask the 8th bit away - even though you don't use it, it does not > mean that it is not needed elsewhere. > > 2) If you plan to provide support for other code pages than CP 437, don't > attempt to make your program aware of all the code pages - you will > miss some. > > 3) Instead, the following information should be user-definable: > > a table for the toupper() function - DOS only provides this if you > are using 3.0 or higer. > > a table for the tolower() function - not provided by DOS. > > a table for the isalpha() - even if a character above 127 is not > alphabetic in your character set (CP 437), it does not mean it > is not alphabetic anywhere else. > > 4) If you provide any translation between code pages, (if the program is a > terminal emulator, for example) make them fully user-definable. > > -frisk I'm having trouble reconciling these two posts. I don't write editors (there are plenty of good ones already) but I want the programs that I do write to work anywhere, (including Iceland.) Between the two posts, I have become confused. (A bad thing when you are a programmer!) I write in C almost exclusively, and I have been aware of the need for the 8th bit for a while, so I usually don't treat user-inputted text much. However, when I am getting options from a menu, or asking for a drive letter or a filename, I usually convert everything to lower case using tolower(), either to reduce the number of comparisons in a switch(){} statement, or to make things look nicer. (I don't like the look of "c:\fILes\ZIP\archive\*.*".) My question is, what do I have to do to make my software usable world-wide if I am *NOT* writing an editor? Write my own toupper(), tolower(), and isalpha() routines, with an editor for each table? (If so, why doesn't someone post some code they've already written and released into the public domain to cbip or alt. sources, or upload it to Simtel or Garbo?) Gak. Maybe I should just stay away from those functions... Shaun. What's just as bad as 8th-bit stripping programs is news software that requires the junk below to post articles... filler filler filler filler filler filler filler filler filler filler filler filler -- shaunc@gold.gvg.tek.com -- 100,000, perhaps 200,000 or more Iraqis died in a "Turkey Shoot" inappropriately called a "war." -- Michael Albert
davel@booboo.SanDiego.NCR.COM (David Lord) (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun15.220717.20911@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >In article <1991Jun15.124052.17827@cbfsb.att.com> mbb@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (martin.brilliant) writes: >>We have a large world here, and Iceland is a small country. If we all >>knew how Icelandic characters are normally entered in an Icelandic >>editor, more editors would provide for the entry of Icelandic characters. > > >By the way, the seemingly endless stream of 7-bit-only software that >refuses to accept Finnish text as input gives me a poor impression of >the US culture. Or rather, it would, if I didn't know better. One problem is that most US programmers have never seen a system with a non-US character set. They simply aren't available here (at least not that your average shareware programmer has access to). Not only that but we've never even seen documentation for them. When I write a program that I'm going to put on a BBS I may ask myself, "Will this work with foriegn character sets?" but I have no way to know for certain unless I get input from those users. For my real job I have written programs that support non-US character sets and it's not always as simple as letting the eight bit go through. For some applications you simply have to mask off the non-displayable characters. Problem is that there's no way to find out what the non-displayable characters are for any given character set. I have to ask those Icelander's who denigrate us for not supporting their character sets, do your programs work in Japaneese? I'd bet that few do. If I find that one of my programs doesn't work in Icelandic I'll try to fix it if you ask me and offer to test out the results. I'm not certain I could extend the same offer for Kanji though (maybe for Katakana).
df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun17.195900.9526@uwasa.fi>, ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: > In article <27139@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: > > Trash to you, not to me, and not to tens of millions of PC users. > >I might, someday, use the 8th bit support of an editor, but I'm not > >holding my breath. Just like your editor you proposed above wouldn't > One thought on this, if I may. Don't you ever draw boxes with your > editor. Nope... not like I think you mean, at least. I'll sometimes use the pipe sign "|" and minus and underscore characters to do it. > If you do, you need the 8-bit characters whatever your > nationality. Likewise, don't you ever use any of the (scanty) > mathematical symbols in the upper ascii. Sorry, I don't. I use my pc mostly as a platform/gateway to connect and to do things that will be used on the net. So while if I want to do boxes or whatever, chances are I'll use something that will produce postscript output, or something gross like tbl. > Even if the rest of the > world is of little consequence to many U.S. programmers (if I've > interpreted some of the arguments from the States correctly), why > wouldn't this be a consideration in the 7-bit vs 8-bit dilemma. I'm not saying that programmers *should* ignore that last bit; I'm just pointing out that a lot of the audience doesn't need it. I'm all for flexibility, extendibility, and in general a more generic/ broader approach to programming. But don't say a program is bad just because it doesn't do what you want. An editor that displays only greek characters does me no good whatsoever -- but it doesn't mean it's "trash" because it's worthless to me. -- dan
yogi@cs.ubc.ca (Joseph Gil) (06/18/91)
In article <1991Jun14.210757.13150@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes: >In article <3246@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: >: >>I agree - programs like this are totally unusable. They may be easy to >: >>As it is, the program is just a waste of disk space.... >> >>Just think about it - an editor which does not allow the entry of 30% of >>the letters in your alphabet ? > >Having looked into so many programs in moderating garbo archives, I >can corroborate the concept that a significant portion of everything >is crap. Yes, seriously. The number of badly written programs, >observation, certainly not a flame. > >................................................................... >Prof. Timo Salmi >Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37 >School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland >Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun May I contribute my $0.02, and say that from my point of view: A) Aled is far from being TINY. B) Aled is just another plain editor. not exiting or good in any way. C) It shouldn't have been posted to begin with- it is so ordinary thaT I throw it to the waste basket without even trying to use 8-bit chars, D) besides I hate it when some one forces me to use blue chars. SO DO NOT EVEN DOWLOAD IT!
toma@sail.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy) (06/18/91)
In article <7326@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil writes: > >By the way, I haven't received any sample text and/or exact >instructions on how to configure a PC in the USA to allow authors to >*see* what 8th bit users need. Instead, I've received messages saying >that I should look in the MS-DOS manual and figure it out for myself. >Can you blame authors for ignoring answers like that? When I was informed that NNANSI.SYS did not work with code pages I figured it out (it's not easy with DOS documentation). This example assumes ega/vga display and the appropriate files in the root directory. Your mileage may vary... Add to config.sys: DEVICE=display.sys con=(ega,437,1) Add to autoexec.bat: mode con cp prep=((850)ega.cpi) mode con cp select=850 keyb be,,keyboard.sys Now type on the top row keys, shifted and unshifted, and with ctrl-alt (or right alt key if you have it.) If you panic, hit ctrl-alt-f1 (ctrl-alt-f2 to get the other keyboard back). BTW -- NNANSI.SYS runs with code pages providing it is installed before display.sys (as the MS-DOS manual points out). -- Tom Almy toma@sail.labs.tek.com Standard Disclaimers Apply
chaz@chinet.chi.il.us (Charlie Kestner) (06/18/91)
Uh, folks... Whilst this MAY be a (highly) interesting discussion for the participants, it doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with what this newsgroup is supposed to be for, does it?
kaukasoi@finsun.csc.FI (Petri Kaukasoina) (06/18/91)
w8sdz@rigel.acs.oakland.edu (Keith Petersen) wrote: >By the way, I haven't received any sample text and/or exact >instructions on how to configure a PC in the USA to allow authors to >*see* what 8th bit users need. Instead, I've received messages saying >that I should look in the MS-DOS manual and figure it out for myself. >Can you blame authors for ignoring answers like that? How to change keyboard from default US to a foreign keyboard: For example, give this command for a Finnish keyboard: KEYB SU,437,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS (or the path where your dos files are) Now try the keys between L and Enter. You get O and A with two dots. With Shift you get capitals as usual. There are special dead keys. They are keys that do not give any character alone. Try to find them. In my keyboard two dots and caret (the same key, one without shift and the other with shift) are two keys to the right from P. And accent grave and accent acute are two keys to the right from zero. If you press first the dead key that gives an accent grave and then the letter o, you get an accented o! The number 437 is the default United States code page. It works for most countries and it is the only one which works with a Hercules monochrome display. For some countries 437 is not enough. Consult your MS-DOS manual (e.g. search for code pages in the index). SU is the code for Finnish keyboard. Instead of SU you can use one of the following two-letter codes: Code Keyboard type us United States fr France gr Germany it Italy sp Spain uk United Kingdom po Portugal sg Swiss-German sf Swiss-French dk Denmark be Belgium nl Netherlands no Norway la Latin America sv Sweden su Finland Petri Kaukasoina kaukasoi@cc.tut.fi
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/18/91)
In article <27140@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: > The problem I see with your analogy is that if I was in that situation, >and I had this faulty editor or pen or whatever, I would just use another >one. I wouldn't blame the typewriter or program, I would just switch. >I think if *all* programs and pens and typewriters were like what you >described, then you'd have a much better case, although, perhaps, your >language might not have developed in the same way, if no one could write >it :-) I allready have stopped using that editor. In fact, I never started to use it, once I found out about the 8th bit! My original posting was done in order to prevent more "pens, typewriters, pencils" to miss those letters :-) We need more "pens, typewriters, pencils..." to support those letters :-) > :-) Well, perhaps. If I was living in Iceland, perhaps I would have >written to the author, or just dismissed the program as yet another >ethnocentric program from those damn americans. I don't think I would >have flamed the program, although who can tell a man's breaking point? :-) I am very sorry to say this, but my breaking point has been reached :-/ > I only hope in the future, people will consider their methods of >communication a bit more. The comment about "whining" I made may have >been out of line (ok, it was :-)), but I still stand by the points I made. No hard feelings? >You called the program useless, and said "SHAME" to the author... I >merely think it would have been more helpful to mail to the author and post >your explanations (that you later posted), instead of getting into a >flame war about how terrible american (and others, I guess) programs are. Well, as I said above, my breaking point broke. (Something just snapped) -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/18/91)
In article <7326@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil writes: >I think everyone is missing the main question. Why didn't the >original complainer send a private e-mail to the author (whose address >*was* provided), asking if he would please add 8th bit support to his >editor. Instead of doing that, the complainer posted to the whole >world that he was throwing the editor away because it didn't support >the 8th bit. That was NOT fair to the author. You didn't give him a >chance! Ok. Maybe I should have got a cup of coffee or tea and think it over. I think I owe the author an apology, but my point is still valid. Programs should *not* mask the 8th bit. Besides, if I had send the author a letter, he might have fixed ALED, but then there is the rest. The Whole lot of other programs that *DO* *MASK* the 8th bit. >By the way, I haven't received any sample text and/or exact >instructions on how to configure a PC in the USA to allow authors to >*see* what 8th bit users need. Instead, I've received messages saying >that I should look in the MS-DOS manual and figure it out for myself. >Can you blame authors for ignoring answers like that? No not really. BUT it would help if one would stop seeing codeing like this: .... c = (getchar() & 0x7f); /* notice this, here the 8th bit is masked */ .... Instead I would like to see more code in this lines: .... c = getchar(); /* notice this, no masking of the 8th bit */ .... -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
ron@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (Ron Van Schyndel) (06/18/91)
In <1991Jun15.220717.20911@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >By the way, the seemingly endless stream of 7-bit-only software that >refuses to accept Finnish text as input gives me a poor impression of >the US culture. Or rather, it would, if I didn't know better. Um....ASCII == American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ^^^^^^^^ :-) RON -- Ron van Schyndel ron@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au Physics Department, Monash University ron%monu6.cc.monash.edu.au@uunet.UU.NET CAULFIELD EAST, Victoria, AUSTRALIA {hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}!munnari!monu6.. Location: 37 52 38.8S 145 02 42.0E Phone: +613-573-2567 Fax: +613-573-2358
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (06/18/91)
In article <7326@vela.acs.oakland.edu> w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil writes: >I think everyone is missing the main question. Why didn't the >original complainer send a private e-mail to the author (whose address >*was* provided), asking if he would please add 8th bit support to his >editor. Instead of doing that, the complainer posted to the whole >world that he was throwing the editor away because it didn't support >the 8th bit. That was NOT fair to the author. You didn't give him a >chance! I assume that the purpose of Einar's posting was not to get this bug fixed in this particular program (which a letter to the author would have done quite nicely), but to draw attention to the problem in general and to create a bit of discussion...... -frisk (who cannot even sign the letter with his full name, because the News softaware does not allow 8-bit messages outside Iceland)
wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun18.110915.21631@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> ron@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (Ron Van Schyndel) writes: >In <1991Jun15.220717.20911@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >>By the way, the seemingly endless stream of 7-bit-only software that >>refuses to accept Finnish text as input gives me a poor impression of >>the US culture. Or rather, it would, if I didn't know better. > >Um....ASCII == American Standard Code for Information Interchange. How true, but don't think I used the abbreviation ASCII in my posting. Anyway, since the IBM PC doesn't use ASCII, but an extended version of it, wouldn't it be sensible (in many cases) to let everyone use the whole character set? Well, I think so, but everyone should decide for themselves. I do, however, ask you to let me use 8 bit characters, but if you don't let me, you might have one customer less. I don't intend this to be taken as a flame, a complaint, or anything like that. I don't want to complain about any particular program or group of people, I just hope that this thread makes the issue a little bit better known. -- Lars Wirzenius wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi
pjh@mccc.edu (Pete Holsberg) (06/19/91)
In article <3253@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: =In article <27098@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer) writes: => This is rediculous -- just because something doesn't suit *your* =>needs doesn't mean that it's "a waste of disk space". What an =>egocentric view -- perhaps the author doesn't care if his program =>is used by whiners in the frozen north. = =No, he obviously did not expect it to be used anywhere but in the US - = =What would you say if I wrote (and posted) an editor which did not allow =you to use C,Q,W or Z - after all, we don't use those letters, so nobody =else could possibly have any use for them, right ? "Fridrik Skulason's recently posted editor does not use C, Q, W or Z. Although it appears to be a well-written pice of software, it is not useful for people who need those letters. He might have mentioned that in the note he posted or in the description of the program." =Well, my reason for flaming is simple - perhaps I might reach the ears of =some American programmers (well, nobody else writes 7-bit PC programs) who =are not yet aware that this is an 8-bit world :-) You stupid jerk! Do you actually think that any American programmers will pay any attention to the needs of people from tiny countries? (Tongue removed from cheek!) How did you feel reading that? Did it make you want to change your ways or just hit back at me? Maybe flaming *isn't* the way to reach someone. Pete -- Prof. Peter J. Holsberg Mercer County Community College Voice: 609-586-4800 Engineering Technology, Computers and Math FAX: 609-586-6944 1200 Old Trenton Road, Trenton, NJ 08690 Internet: pjh@mccc.edu TCF 92 - April ??-??, 1992
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/19/91)
In article <NELSON.91Jun17140028@sun.clarkson.edu> nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu (aka NELSON@CLUTX.BITNET) writes: >In article <3257@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: > > > By the way, the stream of 7-bit programs from the USA gives me a poor > impression of the intelligence of USA programmers. > > Some products are great and works fine. BUT then there are those > morons that *insist* on masking that bl*ody 8th bit!! > >Excuse me. I had thought that, since the 8th bit was unused by USASCII, >there would be no trouble using it for marking purposes, etc. Now I >find that it causes trouble with non-english alphabets. Why am I a moron >when I tried to make my program simpler and hence more reliable? Using the 8th bit for something is ok by me as long as the resulting product is limited in distribution to the USA. I, however, can't stand it when I see a program. It is a nice program doing exacly what I needed, but for one thing: It does *not allow* me to use my national characters! That means either patching it, (using 'debug' or some other low level method), or discard it all together. I somewhere heard the phrase: "the straw that broke the camels back" I think that ALED was that straw in my case. May I put forward one question? Why is your program simpler if you use the 8th bit for yourself? (for internal purposes?) instead of just leaving it alone? And you touch uppon another part of the problem. ASCII. We know what that stands for: American standard code for information interchange? Notice that 'American' word. ASCII is 7bit. I can admit that. But that is no excuse for masking the 8th bit. My advice is: don't mask the 8th bit but handle it as you would any other character. This posting is not ment as a flame. Only as an observation, (even if I don't sound like that :-) -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun17.203508.10919@donner.SanDiego.NCR.COM> davel@booboo.SanDiego.NCR.COM (David Lord) writes: >One problem is that most US programmers have never seen a system with >a non-US character set. They simply aren't available here (at least not >that your average shareware programmer has access to). Not only that but I think that help is on the way. frisk is writeing documentation for a device driver that should provide an Icelandic keyboard along with our characters (but it requires VGA) > >I have to ask those Icelander's who denigrate us for not supporting their >character sets, do your programs work in Japaneese? I'd bet that few do. (BLUSH, insert a red and shamefaced smiley here :-) But I will, in the future, use 'int' for my characters, instead of 'unsigned char' > >If I find that one of my programs doesn't work in Icelandic I'll try to >fix it if you ask me and offer to test out the results. I'm not certain >I could extend the same offer for Kanji though (maybe for Katakana). If I can be of any help, feel free to email me. -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
kds@physics (Stokes Kevin) (06/19/91)
>>In <1991Jun15.220717.20911@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >>>By the way, the seemingly endless stream of 7-bit-only software that >>>refuses to accept Finnish text as input gives me a poor impression of >>>the US culture. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You didn't intend this as a flame? A pretty strong statement for someone who claims they didn't intend their message as a flame. Most programmers probably just use DOS calls to collect user input. I never thought about wether I wanted 7 or 8 bit characters as input in my programs. Of course my customers are 98% American, so I suppose I don't care one way or the other if Finnish folks can't type in text in their native gibberish. ( Kidding.) -Kevin -- Kevin Stokes Duke University Dept. of Physics kds@phy.duke.edu Durham, N.C. 27706
sguerke@brahms.udel.edu (Stephen Guerke) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun18.000720.11825@chinet.chi.il.us> chaz@chinet.chi.il.us (Charlie Kestner) writes: > > Uh, folks... > Whilst this MAY be a (highly) interesting discussion for the >participants, it doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with what this >newsgroup is supposed to be for, does it? I'm not so sure it doesn't belong here, many of these folks are the people who supply programs to c.b.i.p., it seems to me that a discussion which will enhance the quality of the software submitted to that group is appropriate. In the long run I, as a consumer of some of this software, will benefit. I am not a programmer, but I have enjoyed following this discussion (I could alway add it to my kill file). It isn't often, that you get a get a group of people discussing an issue that they can actually have a major impact on, discussing it (for the most part :-)) rationally and with civility. THANKS! -- -------------------------------------------------------- Stephen Guerke, Coord. Computer Resources sguerke@brahms.udel.edu University of Delaware Parallel Program stephen.guerke@mvs.udel.edu Georgetown, DE 19947 ILV20078@UDELVM.UDEL.EDU
roberts@stsci.EDU (Jim Roberts) (06/19/91)
All these postings are astonishing, from both sides of the Atlantic. Almost noone, including the initial posters, has made a due-diligence effort to determine if the 8th bit was the problem. I see the discussion, therefore, as a breast beating exercise on claiming one side or the other of the Political Correctness franchise. Long ago, the evidence suggested that the 8th bit had nothing to do with the problem with ALED, but the debate rages on. One is reminded of the story in George Eliot's _The Mill on the Floss_ (ok, it wasn't on the Floss), in which a pet beaver persisted in buildng a dam even though it was kept on the 4th floor of an apartment house. In her words, it was "under the direct teaching of nature". How many of us are? Isn't *someone* curious about the facts? -- Jim Roberts roberts@stsci.edu scivax::roberts
ej@rci.dk (Erik W. Jeppesen) (06/19/91)
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: >Instead I would like to see more code in this lines: > .... > c = getchar(); /* notice this, no masking of the > 8th bit */ > .... And remember: unsigned char c; to avoid problems with code like the following: if (c < 32) { /* control character */ ... } -- Erik W. Jeppesen ej@rci.dk +45 42 65 80 00 RC International, Lautrupbjerg 1, DK-2750 Ballerup, Denmark
frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (06/19/91)
In article <2554@gold.gvg.tek.com> shaunc@gold.gvg.tek.com (Shaun Case) writes: >However, when I am getting >options from a menu, or asking for a drive letter or a filename, I usually >convert everything to lower case using tolower(), either to reduce the number >of comparisons in a switch(){} statement, or to make things look nicer. >(I don't like the look of "c:\fILes\ZIP\archive\*.*".) Well, although having the "correct" conversion between upper and lower case would be nice, it is not necessary for you to worry about this particular problem. Why ? Well, even though we want to be able to use 8-bit text in editors, terminal emulators and such programs, 8-bit filenames are a very low priority. I mean - they would be nice to have, but DOS only supports them partially, so we generally don't uses them - in fact, in the documentation of all the programs I sell here in Iceland (and I have written 3 out of 4 of the best selling programs here) there is a warning not to use our special characters in file names. -frisk
kaukasoi@cc.tut.fi (Kaukasoina Petri) (06/19/91)
In article <3274@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: >Well, although having the "correct" conversion between upper and lower case >would be nice, it is not necessary for you to worry about this particular >problem. > >I mean - they would be nice to have, but DOS only supports them partially, >so we generally don't uses them - in fact, in the documentation of all the >programs I sell here in Iceland (and I have written 3 out of 4 of the best >selling programs here) there is a warning not to use our special characters >in file names. > >-frisk As a Finn, I do not agree. At least in Finland there is no reason not to use all characters in filenames. If you give small letters in filenames, DOS automatically changes them to capitals, including 8-bit special Finnish characters. But for example 4DOS and Norton Utilities programs which change file names to lower case for some reason leave those Finnish characters in upper case. Looks funny... There is support for case conversions in foreign alphabets in DOS but US programs do not use them. I have no idea why these programs try to display file names in low case... I think no one has written about alphabetical ordering in different languages. If I have the following line in CONFIG.SYS COUNTRY=358,437,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS then for example DOS command SORT knows the order of alphabets in Finnish. WordPerfect 5.1 seems to sort in the right order, too. 4DOS sorts the directory listing in a wrong order. Petri
wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun19.103013.25421@cc.tut.fi> kaukasoi@cc.tut.fi (Kaukasoina Petri) writes: >As a Finn, I do not agree. At least in Finland there is no reason not >to use all characters in filenames. If you give small letters in A word of caution: Don't use the character 229 (e5 in hex, it's a greek letter) as the first character of a filename. That character signals to DOS that the file has been deleted. -- Lars Wirzenius wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi
wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) (06/19/91)
In article <22406@duke.cs.duke.edu> kds@physics.phy.duke.edu (Stokes Kevin) writes: >>>In <1991Jun15.220717.20911@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >>>>By the way, the seemingly endless stream of 7-bit-only software that >>>>refuses to accept Finnish text as input gives me a poor impression of >>>>the US culture. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > You didn't intend this as a flame? A pretty strong statement for someone >who claims they didn't intend their message as a flame. I didn't. You left out the last sentence of the paragraph: :By the way, the seemingly endless stream of 7-bit-only software that :refuses to accept Finnish text as input gives me a poor impression of :the US culture. Or rather, it would, if I didn't know better. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That last sentence was meant to indicate that I didn't think that the whole of the US is a mob of 7-bit minded, f*ck-the-rest-of-the-world and we're-better-than-they-are morons. There are such people in the US, but that kind of people are everywhere. Also, there are lots of considerate people in the US that try very hard to make their software work in as many countries as possible. -- Lars Wirzenius wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi
wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun18.000720.11825@chinet.chi.il.us> chaz@chinet.chi.il.us (Charlie Kestner) writes: > Whilst this MAY be a (highly) interesting discussion for the >participants, it doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with what this >newsgroup is supposed to be for, does it? You may be right (I don't think you are), but is there a good place to discuss this? Is there a newsgroup for internationalization (if that's the right word)? I couldn't find any in the list of newsgroups in news.newusers.announce. -- Lars Wirzenius wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi
jwbirdsa@amc.com (James Birdsall) (06/19/91)
In article <1991Jun19.112156.901@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >A word of caution: Don't use the character 229 (e5 in hex, it's a greek >letter) as the first character of a filename. That character signals to >DOS that the file has been deleted. Actually, I recall that DOS makes provision for this. If handed a filename beginning with 0xE5, it writes the directory entry using some other value instead (0x05?). This is mentioned in any book which gives the internal structure of a directory -- if it isn't, the book is broken. :) When read, DOS translates the other value back to 0xE5. -- James W. Birdsall WORK: jwbirdsa@amc.com {uunet,uw-coco}!amc-gw!jwbirdsa HOME: {uunet,uw-coco}!amc-gw!picarefy!jwbirdsa OTHER: 71261.1731@compuserve.com "The OS shouldn't die every time the controller drools on a sector." -- a sysop =========== "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin ===========
a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) (06/19/91)
In <1991Jun19.075229.3021@rci.dk> ej@rci.dk (Erik W. Jeppesen) writes: >einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: >>Instead I would like to see more code in this lines: >> .... >> c = getchar(); /* notice this, no masking of the >> 8th bit */ >> .... >And remember: > unsigned char c; >to avoid problems with code like the following: > if (c < 32) { > /* control character */ > ... > } Actually, it should be: int c; as getchar can return EOF, which is usually -1. -- 2165888@mcimail.com 70707.453@compuserve.com arthur@pnet01.cts.com (personal) a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) (06/20/91)
wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >In article <1991Jun19.103013.25421@cc.tut.fi> kaukasoi@cc.tut.fi (Kaukasoina Petri) writes: >>As a Finn, I do not agree. At least in Finland there is no reason not >>to use all characters in filenames. If you give small letters in >A word of caution: Don't use the character 229 (e5 in hex, it's a greek >letter) as the first character of a filename. That character signals to >DOS that the file has been deleted. Did you check this? My copy of DOS (MSDOS 4.01)handles 0xe5 as the first file name character without problems. DOS translates it to 0x05 and back, internally. If I remember correctly, I read about this feature in one of the many files in my copy of the MS programmers library (CD-ROM), so it's a documented feature. Of course, everybody else - besides DOS commands - get this wrong. PCTOOLS displays the 0x05 character in its tree listing, for example. The Germany version of Windows 3.0 reacts funny: the file manager displays the character (0xe5 / 0x05) as an underscore, but refuses to handle (move, copy, rename) the file. The attempt to grab and move the file using the mouse results in an error message: "file not found, check file/path name", which isn't especially enlighting. The internationalization support contained in the basic Microsoft operating system products (DOS, OS/2, Windows) is excellent, but most of their application programmers seem to be unable to use it. Wolfgang Strobl #include <std.disclaimer.hpp>
dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) (06/20/91)
In article <a_rubin.677348028@dn71> a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) writes: > In <1991Jun19.075229.3021@rci.dk> ej@rci.dk (Erik W. Jeppesen) writes: > >> c = getchar(); /* notice this, no masking of the > >And remember: > > unsigned char c; > >to avoid problems with code like the following: > > if (c < 32) { > > /* control character */ > > ... > > } > Actually, it should be: > int c; > as getchar can return EOF, which is usually -1. And also: if ((unsigned) c < 32) { ... -- dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland dik@cwi.nl
roth@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Pete Roth) (06/20/91)
In article <3274@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes: [...] >Well, even though we want to be able to use 8-bit text in editors, terminal >emulators and such programs, 8-bit filenames are a very low priority. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In addition to the sample code that will be posted demonstrating proper Icelandic and Norse character handling, a list of the applications arranged from high to low priority would be helpful to us US programmers, so we'd know where to spend our time... regards, pete - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Peter N Roth roth@oasys.dt.navy.mil Objects in this office are closer than they appear.
bruceb@informix.com (Bruce Barr) (06/21/91)
In article <1991Jun19.120529.1782@klaava.Helsinki.FI> wirzeniu@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Lars Wirzenius) writes: >In article <1991Jun18.000720.11825@chinet.chi.il.us> chaz@chinet.chi.il.us (Charlie Kestner) writes: >> Whilst this MAY be a (highly) interesting discussion for the >>participants, it doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with what this >>newsgroup is supposed to be for, does it? > >You may be right (I don't think you are), but is there a good place to >discuss this? Is there a newsgroup for internationalization (if that's >the right word)? I couldn't find any in the list of newsgroups in >news.newusers.announce. Mabye comp.std.internat? Cheers, BB
jrc@brainiac.mn.org (Jeffrey Comstock) (06/22/91)
In article <3271@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: >In article <NELSON.91Jun17140028@sun.clarkson.edu> nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu (aka NELSON@CLUTX.BITNET) writes: >>In article <3257@krafla.rhi.hi.is> einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) writes: >> >> >And you touch uppon another part of the problem. ASCII. We know what that >stands for: American standard code for information interchange? >Notice that 'American' word. ASCII is 7bit. I can admit that. But that >is no excuse for masking the 8th bit. My advice is: don't mask the 8th bit >but handle it as you would any other character. Because almost all computers ( except for CBM and that PETSCII abortion ) are guarenteed to use the same characters in the 'ascii character range'. This means that you can read a document on almost any computer. Just the other day I was trying to view a document about an AT bus card on a Sun workstation. They used all those 'pretty', non-ascii characters to box in certain phrases, and the document was very hard to read. If you start using non-ascii characters, you might as well forget about viewing a document on a different architecture machine. At least high bit-stripping software makes documents 'portable'. -- Jeffrey R. Comstock
einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (06/23/91)
In article <1991Jun22.020306.2825@brainiac.mn.org> jrc@brainiac.mn.org (Jeffrey Comstock) writes: >used all those 'pretty', non-ascii characters to box in certain phrases, and >the document was very hard to read. If you start using non-ascii characters, >you might as well forget about viewing a document on a different architecture >machine. At least high bit-stripping software makes documents 'portable'. Yes. And high bit-stripping software makes documents USELESS here in Iceland! (and in the rest of Europe :-) -- Internet: einari@rhi.hi.is | "Just give me my command line and drag UUCP: ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari | the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!" Surgeon Generals warning: Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!
roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) (06/24/91)
jrc@brainiac.mn.org (Jeffrey Comstock) writes: > Because almost all computers ( except for CBM and that PETSCII abortion ) are > guarenteed to use the same characters in the 'ascii character range'. Watch out for Atari, too... ATASCII uses a 155 for EOL. (fortunately, the rest of the alphanumerics are the same) -- Roy M. Silvernail -- roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu - OR- cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu perl -e '$x = 1/20; print "Just my \$$x! (adjusted for inflation)\n"' "What do you mean, you've never been to Alpha Centauri?" -- Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz