REPLY: 1:153/757.0 35a42764
MSGID: 1:153/7001 663bee96
CHRS: UTF-8 4
Hey Alan!

 AI> It looks like a mess to me.

That is because it is a mess and has been since way back when.

 AI> I'd like to drop all of that and go with utf8

Either that or stick with 7-bit ascii only.  I seriously doubt any of the
DOS-think developers will ever get 8-bit encodings right nevermind utf8.  They
have a long standing tradition of being total fuckups when it cones to
standardization and compatibility.  This is nothing new.  The 12 years I'm
talking about is since fts-5003.001 became official.

 AI> What about all these retro systems. Is utf8 doable for them.

Yes and no.  They lack the proper fonts, as well as understanding of multibyte
characters but they have no issue with reproducing utf8 codes when quoting
them.  It is things like golded that get everything wrong and grunge multibyte
characters.  My best guess why this is so is probably the same reason(s) as to
why they fucked up, and continue to fuck up, ISO encodings as well as others. 
The IBM ones are as close as they seem to get to compatibilty with real world
standards (eg CP866).

Anyhow that is what I've observered over the past 35 years or so.  For my part
I love getting things right and flying the results.  fts-5003.001 came as a
surprise but I was ready for it.  It was only about four years late which be
my math puts BBBS 16 years behind the times.

I would appreciate being proved wrong about the above.

Life is good,
Maurice

 o-  -o    o-   o-   o-   o-  -o    o-   o-  -o    o-   o-   o-   o-  -o    o-
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... Winter sceal geweorpan, weder eft cuman, sumor swegle hat.
    Winter shall turn, good weather come again, summer, bright and hot.
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