Day Brown wrote: >Robert Steinmetz wrote: > >> believe the "A" In ASCII stands for American. So is was developed for English ;) >> >> >Well, the nomenclature is a bit loose. The internet is based on 7 bits, >but the IBM 8 bit, 256 character bitmaps which were used in text modes >(both Linux & dos) and- the BBS networks, included the greek alphabet >and lots of the german/fr/sp letters with oomlats and accents. >Typically, this 8bit set is called the 'ascii' set. > > The official ASCII is a 7 bit set which predates both dos and linux.The first standardized version of ASCII became a standard in 1963 by the ASA (American Standards Association) as it was called at that time. The final version of this standard was established in 1967. ASCII was used in the original internet email system developed in about 1971. Internet news groups came along in the late 1970s and adapted the mail technology to mass distribution, still using the 7 bit ASCII character set. The IBM PC was not introduced until 1981, well after the advent of newsgroups.
>It is yet another functionality which was lost in the switch to the >internet newsgroups from the BBS networks. > It is true that the 8 bit character sets add functionality which was needed. But that came later as computers became more common and more powerful. -- Robert Steinmetz AIA Principal Steinmetz & Associates To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
