Re: ASCII

[Richard Giering dick.giering@xxxxxxxx]

I have just tried to reach the specified web site
and I'm told there is no such DSN - Carols: Can
you check and let me know the proper URL as I have
a need for understanding the HTML character set
for my web site.
Thanks
Dick Giering

Carlo Caballero wrote:
>
> Okay, I checked it out a bit (though, mysteriously, I didn't succeed in
> finding the website of the International Standards Organization), and
> Peter and others seem to be right: "ASCII" refers to a set of characters
> established ca. 1968, and it does not include the positions above 127. It
> is properly called US-ASCII and is closely related to ISO 646. One source
> that looked well-documented to me was
>
>         www.hut.fil/u/jkorpela/chars.html
>
> I stand corrected.
>
> It seems, then, that the writers of the XyWrite manuals were playing loose
> with terminology, too, when they penned this immortal line: "XyWrite
> files are pure ASCII," which I'm sure you'll all remember.
>
> WORDS TO LIVE BY.
>
> For even if the terminology is wrong, the portability of XyWrite files and
> their capacity to be read by so many word processors and platforms makes
> me happy on a weekly basis. Even if those "upper ASCII characters"
> (another misnomer, it seems) don't all display correctly on a Macintosh,
> you can still search and replace. Anyone who's looked at an MS-Word file
> in XyWrite (without applying a filter program) knows what's at issue here.
>
> I wonder if someone who is more expert on character sets than I would like
> to comment on how the documentation for XyWrite--among many other
> sources--came to call "ASCII" all those varied extensions of the original
> US-ASCII? What, then is *not* "ASCII" (in the loose sense of the XyWrite
> manuals)? I've always been suspicious of the term "control codes" and
> would welcome some precision.
>
> What of Unicode, the only character set that looks truly worthy of
> humanity? Do any programs use it?
>
> Best,
> Carlo Caballero
>
> \__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__\__
>
>
> Carlo Caballero, Ph.D.
> Research Associate
> College of Music
> Campus Box 301
> The University of Colorado
> Boulder, CO 80309
>
> thyrsus@xxxxxxxx
>
> "Let's face it: dead people are busier than ever."