dead accent history

[TBaehr@xxxxxxxx]

Xyquest, if memory serves, created the dead accents to match the way
typesetting machinery did them. I would not be surprised if dead accents had
been implemented as a response to a request from a publisher-customer.

Dead accents are apparently a known standard; even MS Word has them, mostly on
the same keys as XyWrite: Ctrl+' for acute, Crtl + ` for grave, Ctrl + : for
umlaut, Ctrl + ~ for tilde. Limited to the usual suspects: no carons or
ogoneks, f'rinstance. When I had a dot matrix printer and SuperScripsit, I
faked hacheks by overprinting the letter, an acute, and a grave--with some
tricky spacing code, as I recall.

I tried a reverse-dead-accents program a few years ago and finally gave
up--the dead accents, needed only occasionally, were all I needed.

Tim Baehr