emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) (12/30/90)
In article <1990Dec22.081718.2109@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
I propose a new USENET header item, namely "Language:"
The default, for historical reasons, would be "Language: English" but
other fields would be fine. And sorry to be so anglo-centric, but
I suspect that the language names should be the English names for the
languages, since it is consistent with the use of English header names.
Apropos of nothing, I looked at Prodigy today at Sears (they had a
real interactive session live, so I poked around.) Contributions to
Prodigy's message areas *must* be in English; apparently their censors
are all good English-speaking Americans. Text in another language
will be rejected.
--Ed
emv@ox.comroot@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Postmaster) (12/31/90)
emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) writes: > In article <1990Dec22.081718.2109@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Tem > > I propose a new USENET header item, namely "Language:" > > The default, for historical reasons, would be "Language: English" but > other fields would be fine. And sorry to be so anglo-centric, but > I suspect that the language names should be the English names for the > languages, since it is consistent with the use of English header names. I agree with the proposal. Waffle BBS Software (which we use at this site) already supports an 8-bit mode so that Cyrillic characters may be used, as well as diacritical marks on latin characters, such as e-acute, o-umlaut, and most others. --- Steve Pershing, System Administrator | The QUESTOR PROJECT - Free Usenet News/Internet Mail; Sci, Med, AIDS, more | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Usenet: sp@questor.wimsey.bc.ca | POST: 1027 Davie Street, Box 486 | | Phones: Voice/FAX: +1 604 682-6659 | Vancouver, British Columbia | | Data/BBS: +1 604 681-0670 | Canada V6E 4L2 |
rad@railnet.UUCP (Rick DeMattia) (01/01/91)
root@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Postmaster) writes: > emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) writes: > > > In article <1990Dec22.081718.2109@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad T > > > > I propose a new USENET header item, namely "Language:" > I agree with the proposal. Waffle BBS Software (which we use at this > site) already supports an 8-bit mode so that Cyrillic characters may be > used, as well as diacritical marks on latin characters, such as e-acute, > o-umlaut, and most others. > Out of curiosity, how do you implement the aforementioned characters? IBM-PC character-set? Is your method of implementation standard across platforms? -- UUCP: {uunet|backbone}!nshore!railnet!rad rad@railnet.uucp CompuServe: 72517.666@compuserve.COM
keld@login.dkuug.dk (Keld J|rn Simonsen) (01/02/91)
My two cents worth on the Language: header: There is an ISO standard ISO 639:1988 which contains all the languages in the world with their English, French and native names - and a standard two-letter abbrevation. I will suggest that the abbrevation should be used in this proposed header. An exert of the ISO 639 standard is available by anon ftp in dkuug.dk:i18n/ISO_639 - it has all abbrevations and the English name listed, but no French nor native names. Concerning the character set, there was a discussion on the news early last year (1990!) - where Kim Storm (the author of nn) announced that support for extended character sets was planned for nn. I think he is still planning this, but the implementation is becoming nearer. Kim Storm planned on using some software I have developed. This SW can handle (in the current release) some 60 different character sets and represent in each character set all of the others via some quite mnemonic encoding. Thus you can have presented what your equipment is capable of, and the rest can be deciphered too, without loss of information. You can use an encoded ASCII as the transport character set, this should pass any news agent in the world. I am employing this SW at dkuug.dk - the Danish Internet mail backbone and uucp gateway, via a sendmail 5.64 + IDA implementation. I there have implemented the headers X-Charset: and X-Char-Esc: to specify the encoding. I am also working together with Dan Oscarsson on doing a truly ISO 10646 based sendmail. The Sendmail and character set SW is available from dkuug.dk:pub Keld Simonsen
davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) (01/02/91)
rad@railnet.UUCP (Rick DeMattia) writes: > > I agree with the proposal. Waffle BBS Software (which we use at this > > site) already supports an 8-bit mode so that Cyrillic characters may be > > used, as well as diacritical marks on latin characters, such as e-acute, > > o-umlaut, and most others. I'm also using Tom Dell's Waffle ( I don't call it a BBS, though, as that leads people to expect "menus and messages" instead of a "prompt and articles") and am going to modify it (I signed up for the C source code) to handle not only English and foreign vowels, but Japanese kanji as well. * Beware: There are places in Waffle V1.63 which strip the 8th bit! Right now I'm running Waffle on a 386SX and have been trying to get a copy of the UNIX version as I now have all the pieces for an Interactive System V/386 system. I'v emailed Tom three times now at <dell@vox.darkside.com> but no reply. If anybody (especially Tom) knows his whereabouts, would you let me know here in alt.bbs (I don't have email to the internet worked out yet). Thanks in advance, --Dave McLane ==== The Aegis Society ============================================= Minami Hirao 1-6, Imazato The content and process of Nagaokakyo-shi, Kyoto-fu, 617 Japan international/cultural Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087 communication. ====================================================================
root@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Postmaster) (01/03/91)
rad@railnet.UUCP (Rick DeMattia) writes: > Out of curiosity, how do you implement the aforementioned characters? > IBM-PC character-set? Is your method of implementation standard across > platforms? From the content of the following message, there appears to be a useful implementation around the corner, and there is a good possibility that it will indeed be standard across all platforms. Maybe we should all get rid of our PC's, Mac's, Amigas, et alia, and all get NeXT's?? :-) > From: keld@login.dkuug.dk (Keld J|rn Simonsen) > Newsgroups: news.software.b,alt.bbs > Subject: Re: New USENET header: Language > Message-ID: <keld.662759787@dkuugin> > Date: 1 Jan 91 19:56:27 GMT > References: <L9P1u1w163w@questor.wimsey.bc.ca> <DsZ3u2w163w@railnet.UUCP> > Sender: news@slyrf.dkuug.dk > Followup-To: news.software.b > There is an ISO standard ISO 639:1988 which contains all the languages > in the world with their English, French and native names - and > a standard two-letter abbrevation. I will suggest that the > abbrevation should be used in this proposed header. > An exerpt of the ISO 639 standard is available by anon ftp in > dkuug.dk:i18n/ISO_639 - it has all abbrevations and the English > name listed, but no French nor native names. > Concerning the character set, there was a discussion on the > news early last year (1990!) - where Kim Storm (the author of nn) > announced that support for extended character sets was planned for nn. > I think he is still planning this, but the implementation is becoming > nearer. > Kim Storm planned on using some software I have developed. > This SW can handle (in the current release) some 60 different character > sets and represent in each character set all of the others via some > quite mnemonic encoding. Thus you can have presented what your > equipment is capable of, and the rest can be deciphered too, > without loss of information. You can use an encoded ASCII as the > transport character set, this should pass any news agent in the world. > I am employing this SW at dkuug.dk - the Danish Internet mail > backbone and uucp gateway, via a sendmail 5.64 + IDA implementation. > I there have implemented the headers X-Charset: and X-Char-Esc: > to specify the encoding. I am also working together with Dan Oscarsson > on doing a truly ISO 10646 based sendmail. > The Sendmail and character set SW is available from dkuug.dk:pub > Keld Simonsen Many thanks for Keld for his timely response!! --- Steve Pershing, System Administrator | The QUESTOR PROJECT - Free Usenet News/Internet Mail; Sci, Med, AIDS, more | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Usenet: sp@questor.wimsey.bc.ca | POST: 1027 Davie Street, Box 486 | | Phones: Voice/FAX: +1 604 682-6659 | Vancouver, British Columbia | | Data/BBS: +1 604 681-0670 | Canada V6E 4L2 |