arachne-digest Monday, March 13 2000 Volume 01 : Number 1036 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:23:26 -0500 (EST) From: "Norman C. Leet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Arachne - Free Internet ISPs ? There are a growing number of "Free Internet ISPs" showing up in recent months, however they all seem to require Windows 95/98 as a pre-requisite (to support the advertising scheme, I would suppose). Has anyone come across a "free ISP" that can accessed via Arachne from a DOS based machine? - -Norm Leet internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 21:38:32 +0000 From: "Christoph Belitz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: insignificant bug in INSIGHT Hi Arachnids, I just found a insignificant bug in Arachne INSIGHT. If Insight generates html-output (for example INBOX-function) from a *.mes-file, the following line is misinterpreted. - ----- Your address has been subscribed to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ----- Insight 'recognizes' the mailaddress, but sees the last dot as a part of the email-address. Solution: Because a e-mail-address never ends with a dot, cut this dot. (Michael P. ?? It's trivial..) Regards, cb - -- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client - -- Arachne V1.60;b1, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 16:04:05 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Eric S. Emerson) Subject: Re: Blue on monitor screen Clarence Verge wrote: > >Eric S. Emerson wrote: >> The left side of the screen starts out with normal >> color, but as the trace continues toward the the right it >> picks up more blue. And, when it approaches the right side of >> the screen the colors are overwhelmed with blue. Also, the >> horizontal size is slightly affected. >> I went inside the monitor and tried to adjust it but >> I could not fix it. I assumed something had failed or was >> weak. Maybe a bad electrolytic condenser? I have no oscil- >> oscope or specs for the monitor, so I gave up and use it >> as it is. It's been that way for 1 or 2 years now and stays >> about the same. > >Hi Eric; >It sounds like it needs to be degaussed. At one time it must have been >subjected to a strong magnetic field. OR, you have attached a magnetic >device to the monitor. >I don't know whether these monitors have automatic degaussing like TV >sets - but it seems like they would. Maybe it doesn't work anymore. >Remove any magnetized attachments, turn the monitor off for 5-10 min >and turn it back on. > >- Clarence Verge > Hi Clarence, Thanks for the suggestion. I have had the monitor turned off and disconnected many times but it never affected the picture quality. I had come across the idea of degaussing somewhere before but I don't recall exactly how to perform it. I think I saw a wire running around the circumference of the screen which is supposed to perform the degaussing function. Eric - -- __________ | Ayrx |__\_ Eric S. Emerson | E-male:~_: ! [EMAIL PROTECTED] `~(*)~~~~(*)~' ````````````````````````` ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 17:44:31 +0000 From: "Kali McLaughlin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: First posting Dear egroup: I have been reading for a couple of days and dare to weigh in on a couple of the running issues: Sympathies with Willy on registration ......I have been added to my boyfiriends list of bad jokes: " I have this girlfried who is so gullible that she sent money to somone called *Network & Fiction* in the Czech Republic!" Seriously though, I did and heard nothing. I have just sent off a generaous bank cheque in Australian dollars to Michael Polak. See if this gets a response! Sympathies also to the writer who had invisible setup fields in Arachne 1.6 I had the same problem and it took a day to work out that it was a font problem and not a colour problem. The solution is disappointing as I wanted to use big fonts to avoid wearing glasses at the computer/ Can I launch also into a couple of other problems: *** Wordwrap is weird. It stops working halfway down the compose feild. Also I get one word missing off the right hand side when reading mail. I have 640 by 480 setup and a TSeng 4000 graphics card. This does not seem to affect the problem, likewise fiddling with the fonts. *** I cant get arachne to recognise any of the EGA card/screen combinations that I have. This is a shame as I actually run Windows just for the Hercules drivers that you can get. I dont have mains power, and a colour screen uses more power than the 486 DX33 box I am using. *** Path statemnets!!!! I have a Vdisk provided by DRDOS which seems fine and the TEMP directory loads some pages instantly but mail reading is painful. I can get around this by reading and editing the .cnn and .tbs in a DOS editor. I have tried running the whole of Arachne on a V disk but it wont find its mailboxes. I would have expected that absolute addresses listed in PREFERENCES would have worked. *** The mouseless operation is infuriatingly unreliable with no selections alowed below about thalf the page! I have found that "mouse highlight" is great for revealing the problem, and that loading the mouse driver, even if there is no mouse, fixes the problem. Good! One great improvement I have found in the 1.6 version is that the keymatic rate is about five times faster, so you can actually use the arrow keys as a sort of mouse. Enough for now! Kali - -- Arachne V1.60;b1, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:22:43 +0100 From: "Willy J. Hoogstraten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Arachne - Free Internet ISPs ? Hi, On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:23:26 -0500 (EST), Norman C. Leet wrote: > There are a growing number of "Free Internet ISPs" showing up > in recent months, however they all seem to require Windows 95/98 > as a pre-requisite (to support the advertising scheme, I would > suppose). In The Netherlands, the free ISPs require MS Win9x or NT because: 1) the software one receives if one become a member requires it, 2) the helpdesk doesn't know anything about other OSs. I've got one free ISP and one kind of free ISP and I'm using DOS (most of the time). The only trouble I have sometimes is with forms on their sites (Java). > Has anyone come across a "free ISP" that can accessed via Arachne > from a DOS based machine? This depends on your country. In the USA there is Freewwweb. If you want to know about it, go to "http://chat.arachne.cz/#end" and ask Wizard57M, he knows very much about this Freewwweb and DOS. - - Best regards, - - Willy J. Hoogstraten. - - End of message - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 16:59:59 -0500 From: "Samuel W. Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Arachne - Free Internet ISPs ? On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 15:23:26 -0500 (EST), Norman C. Leet wrote: > There are a growing number of "Free Internet ISPs" showing up > in recent months, however they all seem to require Windows 95/98 > as a pre-requisite (to support the advertising scheme, I would > suppose). Juno email is one of the popular free internet services that actually does require Windows. > Has anyone come across a "free ISP" that can accessed via Arachne > from a DOS based machine? Hello: We have found that almost all ISPs will support Arachne, even though we are told by the ISP's technical support experts that they don't support DOS. My own ISP doesn't support DOS, yet I have not encountered any difficulties in using the ISP with about seven or eight entirely different DOS internet clients. When they tell you that they don't support DOS, all that usually means is that they won't help you and that they probably don't even know how to help you, and that even if they did know how to help, they wouldn't. Most of the people on the list would agree with my opinion on this matter. I don't know if the "free" ISPs tend to be any different from the others in this regard. You will simply just have to try to connect with the ISP and find out for yourself whether it works with Arachne. If you have any luck, then please let us know. Don't believe anything the technical support people tell you. They would prefer to just give you the wrong answers than to admit that they don't even know the right answers. They are very much afraid of appearing to be ignorant. They think that if they give you some answers you will think that they are smart. They are too ignorant to realize that you are smart enough to determine whether their answers are correct. After all, since they are the technical experts, they have every reason to expect you to simply accept their answers and not to conduct any further investigations and experiments on your own. Arachne will provide you with some most valuable lessons on why you should always question authority. Sam Heywood - -- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:05:51 +0100 From: "Michael Polak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Copy & paste Arachne 1.60 beta 2 is waiting only for copy & paste. Today, I have implemented 99% of copy & paste support; it already works perfectly, but it needs some visual cleanup (cursor colors, etc.) and more friendly UI (marking of blocks by shift+cursor and maybe by mouse clicking), and also integraion of old single line clipboard functionality with new multiline functionality. So I hope I will manage to do all this stuff tomorrow, because it is all pretty easy. Only tricky stuff was finding correct new cursor position after deleting block of text ;-) BTW, new Arachne clipboard is file stored on disk. It will be slow for people who don't have disk caching or RAM disk, but it will be interoperable with any DOS program... - -- Michael Polak: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Arachne Labs: http://arachne.cz/ My mobile phone - up to 160 characters: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 22:22:13 +0100 From: "Michael Polak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: arachne-digest V1 #1035 Dne Sun, 12 Mar 2000 20:42:25 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (arachne-digest) napsal: > Remember the Prague spring 1968, when Czechoslovakia tried "socialism with a > human face", and in August, the Warsaw Pact countries, led by the USSR, came in > with tanks and reestablished order, meaning hard-line Communism? Maybe the USSR > would have thought twice if the people of Czechoslovakia were better equipped to > blow up those tanks? Or would the Warsaw Pact countries have bombed > Czechoslovakia to rubble as Russia did more recently in Chechnya? Yes, they would do just anything, as they did eg. in Hungary 1956. Armed resistance would be useless; bad luck, that peacful civil resistance hadn't pasted long too. In the region where my country is located, almost all open millitary resistance proved to be useless; last succesful defendants of our country were religious rebels in 15th century, but since than, this region proved to be non-defendable many and many times. - -- Michael Polak: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Arachne Labs: http://arachne.cz/ My mobile phone - up to 160 characters: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 23:23:12 +0100 From: "Willy & Danielle Hoogstraten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: First posting Hi, On Sat, 11 Mar 2000 17:44:31 +0000, Kali McLaughlin wrote: > Sympathies with Willy on registration > .......I have been added to my boyfiriends list of bad jokes: > " I have this girlfried who is so gullible that she sent money to somone > called *Network & Fiction* in the Czech Republic!" > Seriously though, I did and heard nothing. I have just sent off a > generaous bank > cheque in Australian dollars to Michael Polak. See if this gets a > response! I've been trying to register many software from people who wrote and posted their programs years ago and many of them didn't reply. Okay, I can understand that. But if someone (like Michael P.) releases a program and in the same year _refuses_ to reply registration requests, that's a shame for the shareware-business in general and for the writer in person! Specially if the program comes with the request for registration (inc. delay screens and mail signature). > *** Path statemnets!!!! I have a Vdisk provided by DRDOS which seems fine > and the TEMP directory loads some pages instantly but mail reading > is painful. I can get around this by reading and editing the .cnn and .tbs > in a DOS editor. I have tried running the whole of Arachne on a V disk but > it wont find its mailboxes. I would have expected that absolute > addresses listed in PREFERENCES would have worked. Are you sure that the absolute addresses end with a backslash (the \ sign) ? I 'ran around' with the mailboxes across my HDD partititons and never had any trouble with that. > *** The mouseless operation is infuriatingly unreliable with no > selections alowed below about thalf the page! > I have found that "mouse highlight" is great for revealing the problem, > and that loading the mouse driver, even if there is no mouse, fixes > the problem. Good! You're lucky, my mousedrivers won't load w/o a mouse. - - Best regards, - - Willy J. Hoogstraten. - - End of message - ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 18:07:05 -0500 From: Roger Turk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Blue on monitor screen Eric, If your monitor does not have a degaussing button on the back, you can make a degausser by taking a circular metal (magnetic) ring about 8-inches in outside diameter, winding it with insulated wire and connecting the wire to a dry cell battery, i.e., making it an electromagnet. Pass the ring around, over, behind, and under (as far as you can) with the plane of the ring parallel to the monitor. Keep the ring moving, not fast, but don't keep it in one spot. Typically you will have gaussing problems when you change the position of the monitor as the magnetic fields of the earth and nearby electric/electronic equipment have semi-permanently distorted the magnetic fields of the CRT magnets. Hope this helps. Roger Turk Tucson, Arizona USA Eric S. Emerson wrote: >>Thanks for the suggestion. I have had the monitor turned off and disconnected many times but it never affected the picture quality. I had come across the idea of degaussing somewhere before but I don't recall exactly how to perform it. I think I saw a wire running around the circumference of the screen which is supposed to perform the degaussing function.<< ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 18:43:53 -0500 From: Clarence Verge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Blue on monitor screen Eric S. Emerson wrote: > > I had come across the idea of degaussing > somewhere before but I don't recall exactly how to perform it. > I think I saw a wire running around the circumference of the > screen which is supposed to perform the degaussing function. Hi Eric; The degaussing coil is like you describe except it is MANY turns of wire in the form of a coil. The coil is usually 8 -12 inches in dia. With a few hundred turns of fine wire, the coil can be plugged into the wall outlet and with the plane of the coil parallel to the screen it is manipulated in sort of circles within circles for the 10-30 seconds it takes to do the job. With fewer turns of heavier wire, one must use a transformer between the wall outlet and the coil. If you want to try degaussing your monitor, find a friendly TV repair shop and ask them if they will do it for you if you bring it in. If they are nice, they will do it for free while you wait. The monitor does not need to be turned on but if it is, you will see red and green swirls of color while it is degaussing. There is a slight problem with degaussing it in a different location than the one in which it will be used due to the different ambient magnetic fields but at least you might see an improvement. I still think you might have a magnet attached or nearby. - - Clarence Verge - -- - - Help stamp out FATWARE. As a start visit: http://home.arachne.cz/ - -- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 19:19:13 -0500 From: Clarence Verge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: First posting Kali McLaughlin wrote: > > *** I cant get arachne to recognise any of the EGA card/screen combinations > that I have. This is a shame as I actually run Windows just for the > Hercules drivers that you can get. I dont have mains power, and a colour > screen uses more power than the 486 DX33 box I am using. Welcome Kali, you Hercules using nut case ! <G> There are very few of us left. You don't have to excuse yourself with the power consumption explanation - monochrome is really beautiful if you are lucky enough to have a white screen and are viewing material that isn't something stupid like red on green.<g> And the time to load a monochrome screen is a small fraction of that required for color if you can get some monochrome drivers. I use an ATI VGAwonder XL card that supports VGA, EGA and HERCULES. This card will convert EGA to HERCULES and gives me a decent grayscale without the dithering that Windows uses. This card/monitor combo gives a really decent display with Arachne. I just selected EGA in setup. What card(s) are you using and which Windows drivers ? > *** Path statemnets!!!! I have a Vdisk provided by DRDOS which seems fine > and the TEMP directory loads some pages instantly but mail reading > is painful. I can get around this by reading and editing the .cnn and .tbs > in a DOS editor. I have tried running the whole of Arachne on a V disk but > it wont find its mailboxes. I would have expected that absolute > addresses listed in PREFERENCES would have worked. The usual problem here is a lack of a SET TEMP=X:\path\TEMP in your autoexec. And also, that TEMP dir must pre-exist. Another possibility is that you have left the MAIL directory spec in its' default condition. This hardly ever works. You will need to use a text editor and FULLY specify the mail path in Arachne.cfg. I usually use Arachne on a ramdisk with MAIL and DOWNLOAD left on the HD and Arachne finds the directories fine as long as they are fully specified. Finally, if TEMP is on the ramdisk, you should make Cache2TEMP Yes in arachne.cfg but this wouldn't stop the mail from working. > *** The mouseless operation is infuriatingly unreliable with no > selections alowed below about thalf the page! > I have found that "mouse highlight" is great for revealing the problem, > and that loading the mouse driver, even if there is no mouse, fixes > the problem. Good! I also hate to use a mouse. That problem has been fixed I'm told. > One great improvement I have found in the 1.6 version is that the > keymatic rate is about five times faster, so you can actually use > the arrow keys as a sort of mouse. It is simple to speed up the typomatic rate and reduce the initial delay by running a couple of programs once in your autoexec. Fastkey and Quick can make the cursor fly from side to side in less than a second if you so desire. I will send them upon request. > Enough for now! - - Clarence Verge - -- - - Help stamp out FATWARE. As a start visit: http://home.arachne.cz/ - -- ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 17:17:30 From: "Dale Mentzer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Blue on monitor screen On 12 Mar 00 at 14:03, Clarence Verge wrote: >>Eric S. Emerson wrote: >>> The left side of the screen starts out with normal >>> color, but as the trace continues toward the the right it >>> picks up more blue. And, when it approaches the right side of >>> the screen the colors are overwhelmed with blue. Also, the >>> horizontal size is slightly affected. >>> I went inside the monitor and tried to adjust it but >>> I could not fix it. I assumed something had failed or was >>> weak. Maybe a bad electrolytic condenser? I have no oscil- >>> oscope or specs for the monitor, so I gave up and use it >>> as it is. It's been that way for 1 or 2 years now and stays >>> about the same. >> >>Hi Eric; >>It sounds like it needs to be degaussed. At one time it must have been >>subjected to a strong magnetic field. OR, you have attached a magnetic >>device to the monitor. >>I don't know whether these monitors have automatic degaussing like TV >>sets - but it seems like they would. Maybe it doesn't work anymore. >>Remove any magnetized attachments, turn the monitor off for 5-10 min >>and turn it back on. >> >>- Clarence Verge That might be it, Clarence. Maybe he has some speakers too close to the monitor, or they are unshielded and hence not intended for computer use. It may well be that the degaussing circuit is on the fritz. These circuits are designed to only work for a brief period when the monitor is first turned on and it may have simply quit. He might be able to find a local TV repair shop that might be able to degauss it for him manually. HTH. Regards, Dale Mentzer Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant. This mail written by a user of Arachne, the DOS Internet Client WWWWW World Wide Web Without Windows http://home.arachne.cz Arachne DOS Browser Home Page ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 17:26:43 From: "Dale Mentzer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Blue on monitor screen On 12 Mar 00 at 14:37, Roger Turk wrote: >>This reminds me of two things: In the early days of color TV, RCA was using >>a poor grade of solder in the pins on their tubes which would break down >>after a couple of years. An *honest* repairman told me that more new tubes >>were sold when all they needed to do was sweat in a good grade of solder, >>which he did on site for only the charge for a service call. I have also seen this failure on the flyback transformers of some monitors and TV's and it is worth the few minutes it takes to check for this. >>The second thing that I am reminded of is when I was in the U.S. Navy and >>going to Radar School. We were cautioned that there were high voltage >>capacitors in the radar equipment that did not always discharge when the >>equipment was shut down and that before going into any piece of radar, we >>should ground out all capacitors with a grounding rod and go over all >>visible connections before we cautiously entered the equipment. They had >>one piece of equipment which was set up so the capacitors would not >>discharge so that we could see how much zap the capacitors held. That >>demonstration made a believer out of me such that I made a grounding rod and >>use it religiously whenever I go into any piece of electronic equipment. I bet they taught you try to keep one hand in your pocket so the charge would (hopefully) not make it's primary path through the cardiac area. Regards, Dale Mentzer It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser. This mail written by a user of Arachne, the DOS Internet Client WWWWW World Wide Web Without Windows http://home.arachne.cz Arachne DOS Browser Home Page ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 17:45:13 From: "Dale Mentzer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Blue on monitor screen On 12 Mar 00 at 16:04, Eric S. Emerson wrote: >>Hi Clarence, >> Thanks for the suggestion. I have had the monitor >>turned off and disconnected many times but it never affected >>the picture quality. I had come across the idea of degaussing >>somewhere before but I don't recall exactly how to perform it. >>I think I saw a wire running around the circumference of the >>screen which is supposed to perform the degaussing function. >> >> Eric Yes, that is the degaussing coil. It is actually several windings of wire and is controlled by a thermistor (IIRC) that allows a large current at startup and then (pretty quickly) reduces it to near zero. Otherwise, it would distort the screen image and/or color. As I wrote to Clarence it may have failed and does not operate at all, or even possibly it is staying on continuously. Maybe some others have seen this before. Regards, Dale Mentzer Chaos, panic and disorder...my work here is done. This mail written by a user of Arachne, the DOS Internet Client WWWWW World Wide Web Without Windows http://home.arachne.cz Arachne DOS Browser Home Page ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 01:06:11 -0500 From: "Samuel W. Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Charset in insight On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 08:47:04 +0100 (MET), Bernie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sam Heywood wrote: >> I don't know how you and the other >> folks on this list who do your emails in various languages can deal with the >> problem. > I use the "standard" US "ASCII" table, therefor I never have any problems > with diffrent languages. (�, � and � are in the US "ASCII" table). The only > problem that arises is that ex. RAR get som of the "graphical signs" wrong > - and that doesn't bother me at all. I don't have a problem with different languages either, as long as both myself and my correspondent use the same email program and have their systems set up for the same code pages. I explained this. Within Arachne's Insight the characters you wrote above are seen OK at my end. When viewed from the DOS console they are garbage. If your correspondent has his machine set up for a different code page then the characters you send might look like garbage on the receiving end regardless of what method your correspondent uses to view your message. >> It would be nice to be able to use a single table to be universally >> compatible with all good email readers. > You are forced to use Unicode if you need to be able to mail whoever you > want (assuming the reader has unicode as well). An option would be HTML > here - it's much more wide spread IMHO then Unicode. A problem with sending HTML attachments is that people who use a defective operating system such as Micro$oft Window$ will be afraid to open them for fear of getting a virus. >> Assuming we both have normal vision, if I should send a string of >> characters from my machine to your machine, you should be able to load those >> characters on your display and see them the same as I do. > I wouldn't, as of yesterday my monitor thinks most things are supposed to > be blue :( > Any ideas on what might be wrong with it are appriciated, I'm still looking > for the guarantee. I once had an old VGA monitor that started to lose its color. Then some other things went wrong with it. I had to replace it. There was no point in repairing it because I got a replacement at a flea market for $15.00 >> I did not know at the time that I needed to change my code page. I don't >> even understand why code pages are needed to deal with any situation that >> does not involve encryption. > (snip) >> Characters sent should be >> the same as characters received and displayed. Why do we need code pages >> when no encryption or conversion is being made? The exchanging of words >> ought to be made as easy as the exchanging of music. > If I where to send you the following code: 01000011 (in binary) you need to > know how to interpret it - and this is what the code pages do. This code > will be seen as the same since it's a "C", but something starting with a 1 > instead of a 0 must be handled in some way since these aren't standard. I understand that. That is why we need standardization and compatibility. You don't put a descramber on your telephone in order to try to understand a caller who speaks to you in some language other than the one you normally use at home. Why should you have to install a code page on your computer to view a written message the same way as your correspondent wrote it? It should not matter what language it is written in. Anything that gets transmitted in the clear should appear on the receiving end the same way as it looked on the sending end. If this is not happening, then there is a problem. Sam Heywood - -- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 03:21:34 -0500 From: "Samuel W. Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Charset in insight (LONG, possibly OT) On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 10:49:25 +0100 (CET), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Richard Menedetter) wrote: > Hi > "Samuel W. Heywood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > SH> http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/schluter/doc/tags/characters.html > Look what is in the first half of the page: > 'Table of printable Latin-1 Character codes' The ALT + NUM characters of course. > So your 'HTML Entity' is latin-1 (aka iso-8859-1) I have discovered by testing that the editor within Arachne uses Latin-1, ISO-8859-1 ALT + NUMs that correspond with those in the referenced table. The editor will recognize the same ALT + NUMs regardless of how I set up Arachne. These ALT + NUMs are not the same as those used in popular DOS text editors such as PEDIT and QEDIT and EDIT.COM. If I set up my code page for ISO-8859-1, would the popular text editors perform differently? I don't know. I have not yet conducted the experiment. > Step by step we get closer to the solution :) > SH> By the American ISO I mean the DOS system default. > OK this is codepage 437. > ISO and DOS have _nothing_ in common. You said that if I set up my code page within DOS for a different ISO then I would see the characters differently from the DOS console. In other words, if I were to enter the command "type myfile.txt", the appearance of the non-English characters would vary according to the code page used. > SH> It doesn't matter what I call it as long as you know what I'm talking > SH> about. > Yes :) but I really wasn't sure ... I was just guessing. > (but it seems that I guessed right) OK >>> First of all there is no american ISO ... >>> ISO stands for _INTERNATIONAL_ Standards Organization >>> HTML Entities are such things like ä -> parsed as � > SH> OK, OK. Now I understand what you are talking about. I am talking > SH> about the ALT + NUMs. I don't know the technical term for the ALT + > SH> NUMs. > There is no ... it depends on the codepage you use ... > eg alt 065 is always A, but alt num 123 depends on the codepage. > So you simply tell us what codepage you use. > If you haven't changed that than it is the default codepage 437. I haven't changed that yet. I have the idea that changing my code page will eat up a lot of memory. >>> If you write the mail in a correctly configured insight, than it >>> should be readable. > SH> I have found that as long as I use the ALT + NUMs as provided in the > SH> referenced table, the characters will be viewed correctly within > SH> Insight regardless of what character set I specify in my Arachne > SH> setup. > IMHO the default fonts are latin-1 fonts. > The character set specification is simply makeup .. IMHO. > But I don't use insight, so I'm not sure. > SH> If, however, I should use the ALT + NUMs provided in the "standard" > SH> ascii table, to include the "standard extended ascii table", then the > SH> characters will not be readable within Insight. > you speak about cp437. > Sure ... because cp437 is not equal to iso latin-1. > On the internet the iso latin family is widely used, so it is a very good > idea to use this !! >>> If you install the stuff that I zipped up, you will end up with a >>> iso latin1 in DOS. So if you can read it in DOS, and send it away >>> with the correct charset header it should be readable to anybody >>> with an average mail reader (or a good one :) > SH> But this would seem to work out only if my correspondent had his code > SH> page set up the same as mine. > No ... there are 2 possibilities. > On other OSes you simply use a font, that displays the characters > correctly. (you look into the header, and use the font specified there.) > SH> I don't want to have to change my DOS setup and my code pages and my > SH> keyboard maps every time I alternate beween reading or writing in one > SH> language and another. > Use another OS ... > Sorry this is the only advice I can give you, when you frequently use > different languages, which are not fully covered by iso latin1. (see the > url that you have sent in the first part of the message, for which > characters are covered) > If you only need latin1, you can simply use the default cp437, switch to > latin1 in a batchfile, load your mailreader, switch to cp437 - ready > SH> I don't know how you and the other folks on this list who do your > SH> emails in various languages can deal with the problem. > simply use a mailreader that can either > 1) use different fonts in different languages > 2) use translation tables. > to 2 eg there is � in cp437, but on another position. > So my mailreader has translation tables, and corrects this. > SH> If I use the ALT + NUMs provided in the table referenced by the URL, > SH> then the message will be readable within Insight, > and all other sane and good mailreader > SH> but it would not be readable with Net-Tamer, which is also considered > SH> a very good mail reader. > If it can't display iso latin-1 (defacto standrad) than I consider it not > to be a good mail reader. Maybe it can display ISO Latin 1. I don't know. It does display extended ascii characters. I don't know how it would work for a different code page. I haven't tested this. > It seems that it simply doesn't care about codepages. > and uses the codepage provided by DOS. > SH> In order to read the message correctly with Net-Tamer I would > SH> have to use the extended ascii characters found in the "standard" > SH> table rather than the table provided by the URL. > Even that is not true. > If I would use Nettamer they would be not correctly displayed, as I don't > use cp437, but cp850. (dos latin1) > SH> The "standard" table is the one provided by popular text editors such > SH> as PEDIT and QEDIT and found in US textbooks. > the editors present you with a table that shows YOUR _current_ codepage. That indeed very interesting. These text editors must have required some highly ingenious programming. > SH> Whether that table should be referred to as the "standard" one is > SH> another question altogether. > It is codepage 437 > SH> Conclusion: The table provided by the URL works for Insight, but not > SH> for Net-Tamer. The "standard" table works for Net-Tamer, but not for > SH> Insight. > Because nettamer simply ignores and does not care about that topic. > Nettamer seems to be written by an american for americans ... Net-Tamer may be used for sending and receiving messages in most European languages provided that both the receiver and sender use the same code page. > If you write your mail in iso latin-1 than it is displayed correctly in 95% > of the cases. > (all windows mailreaders, all linux mailreaders, all mac mailreaders) > Only very old DOS programs have problems with it. OK, this is very good to know. How much memory do you think I would lose by changing my code page to Latin-1? > SH> It would be nice to be able to use a single table to be universally > SH> compatible with all good email readers. > There _IS_ one ... >>> You can't use ascii values for 'special' characters, because there >>> ARE NO ascii values for these characters !!! > SH> I meant of course "extended ascii values" as given in the "standard" > SH> table. > There is no standard table. > There is a default characterset for DOS wich is codepage 437. >>> SH> I am merely suggesting that everybody should adopt one universal >>> SH> numbering scheme for all the characters used in all of the >>> SH> world's languages. >>> There IS such a scheme ... as I and many others have already written >>> here .... goto http://www.unicode.org > SH> Yes, I've looked into that. It sure would be good if they could > SH> develop Unicode for DOS. Some list members think it is possible. > I don't belong to this group. > IMHO DOS does not have the capabilities to do so. > Specially DOS programs can use the display directly, and so they wouldn't > car about unicode, and mess up everything. (as Michael P. already said) >>> SH> Please examine the characters below from within Insight and also >>> SH> from within the DOS console. I think we all can agree that this >>> SH> is a big problem. >>> Not really ... this is like I put my tape into the cd-player and I >>> couldn't hear anything. > SH> Bad analogy. Tape players and cd players are different types of > SH> machines, data is recorded on different types of media, the tape > SH> player uses analog technology and the CD player digital technology. > This about covers the difference between a modern OS and DOS :))))) > (sorry ... I like DOS, but ... :) >>> SH> BTW, I would be curious to know how this message looks to >>> SH> someone who is reading it with Outlook or Eudora, or any other >>> SH> popular Winblows program. >>> OK here the facts: >>> You state in your header that you used iso latin1. >>> So every sane Email program (including windows, nextstep, amiga ...) >>> will display it using an iso latin1 font. > SH> This is not the case. Some email readers such as Net-Tamer, Barebones > SH> DOS, and NetMail DOS don't care what the header says. The message > SH> would be displayed as though it were seen from the DOS console. > But this is the problem of THESE PROGRAMS. > If there is a sign that says don't smoke (and there are many explosives > near), and you do smoke, and BOOOOM, that's your problem. > Same applies to codepages. > If you know what codepage you should use, but don't use it ... HMMM > SH> You are saying that good email readers actually read the header and > SH> display the message in accordance with what the header says. > YES ... exactly > SH> Arachne doesn't care what the header says. > I nevers said that Insight is considered good by me ... :) > (Arachne browser is GREAT !!) > SH> If I should send the same message with the default ISO header instead > SH> of with the Latin-1 header, > ISO is an organization that 'produces' standards. > One of them is the iso-8859-x family. it's most prominent member is latin1. > (iso-8859-1) > SH> the message would still be viewed the same from within Insight. > Nevertheless Insight is much better than NT, because it displays iso-latin1 > and US-ascii correctly. (And this covers most communicatiosn on the net) >>> So the 1. part is displayed correctly .... (in every sane mail >>> program) > SH> Part 1 is displayed correctly by Insight, but incorrectly by email > SH> programs that display text the same as the DOS console. > Sure ... because these programs ignore any charset line. > This behaviour is NOT considered sane by me. >>> and the 2. part (written with the standard DOS codepage 437, but >>> wrongly assumed to be latin1) is displayed incorrectly. > SH> The DOS console doesn't assume anything. It doesn't convert > SH> anything. It only shows you what can be seen from its own vantage > SH> point. > Exactly > SH> DOS applications can be written to read headers and convert > SH> characters, but the DOS console doesn't see anything beyond its own > SH> vantage point. > yes > SH> If you have a code page loaded, then you are probably running some > SH> kind of application to change the way DOS displays text. > SH> Am I right? > hmm ... I don't understand, if you load a different CP, you don't need an > additional application. Then a code page is not a DOS application? The code page is not some kind of TSR running in the background? > My mailreader works so that you tell him what CP it should use for export, > which codepage is the local one, and you provide some rules how to convert > them. > SH> In a "normal" machine, the keys you press, or the key combinations > SH> you press will create their corresponding characters in the message. > NO !!! > The corresponding characters are NOT necessarily CODED equally. > EG I press a this generates code 065. in cp437, and nearly all other CPs. > BUT it might be possible that in cp ricsi-1 (imaginery) > it displays as � and a is 001. > So you have to translate code 001 in ricsi-1 to code 065 if viewed with > cp437 !!! Then the code page is an application running in the background and it translates and decodes? It must take a lot of memory. > SH> These characters should correspond to the way the keys are labeled or > SH> to a universal standard set of numeric designators to which they are > SH> assigned. > There aren't even keys for all characters ... > where is the � key ?? For my code page, cp 437, the � is created by entering ALT + NUM 225. There is no special key for it. If the � is a normal alphabet character in some language group, then the people who speak the language could easily hardwire a special keyboard that would have a � key. It is entirely up to them if they really want to have a � key. Everybody has a right to speak and write and type in his own language. > SH> Characters sent should be the same as characters received > SH> and displayed. > You don't send charsets. > You send codes. > And these codes are interpreted by the codepage of the receiving party. I understand that I am sending strings of binary numbers. As long as they occur in the same pattern that is seen in a language system, then they are not "codes" in the strictest sense. You could even understand a Martian who sends binary numbers provided he were actually attempting to communicate with you. In such a case the strings of binary numbers would fit a statistical pattern that could be easily analyzed, especially if the Martian really wanted to be understood. You could easily display his binary numbers on a computer screen without the need for a code page. In a matter of a few hours the folks at NSA would have analyzed what the Martian has to say and they could even send him a reply in his own language. No problem. So why can't Earthlings learn to communicate as well as their hypothetical extra-terrestrial counterparts? > So it is possible that codes are misinterpreted. > So you tell the receiver how you meant to interpret it. > (eg charset iso-latin1) > So you have provided enough information to display the characters > correctly. If they don't do so, it's THEIR problem, not yours. It is everybody's problem as long as we don't know what the standards are and we don't know how to set up our machines so as to be compliant with the standards. > SH> Why do we need code pages when no encryption or conversion is being > SH> made? > See above. > Ancryption has nothing to do with codepages !! You shouldn't need codepages, even if you are trying to communicate with an extra-terrestrial, especially if the extra-terrestrial is really trying to communicate with you. > SH> The exchanging of words ought to be made as easy as the exchanging of > SH> music. > Yes ... but you can't listen to a modern CD in a 20 year old tape deck ! But you can record on a tape everything that is on the CD and then play the tape and listen to it. The quality will be diminished, but not to the extent that you cannot appreciate it. > And DOS can be compared to a tapedeck ... it by itself offers very few > services by it's own. If your tapedeck goes bad it is easy to discover what is wrong with it and then you can fix it. Or you can buy a new tapedeck cheap. The same applies to a DOS machine. Later, Sam Heywood - -- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client ------------------------------ End of arachne-digest V1 #1036 ******************************
