8-Bit ASCII Standard on UNIX-POSIX

[Moderator, John S. Quarterman]

From: uunet!topaz.rutgers.edu!linhart (Mike Threepoint)

u <- guy at Sun.COM (Guy Harris)

When we last left our conversation:
[description of MS Windows "ANSI" character set]
me> Sound like ISO 8859?

u> Yes.  The superscripted letters *do* come from ISO 8859 (see below).

Thanks to your table, I can confirm that they match.  Multiply and
divide symbols are missing, replaced by the ubiquitous empty box, but
now my EGA font is complete (for my IBM compatible, made with CHET, I
could post it to binaries if anyone really wanted it).

me> What I would also like to see is the ASCII 0..1F (31 dec.) graphic
me> representations on new machines conform to the ANSI standard.  They
me> might look impractical, but after setting up a font using them on my
me> micro, it's amazing how much sense they make to me.

u> What "graphic representations" are you referring to?  The only ANSI standard
u> I know of for characters in the range 0x00 to 0x1f is ASCII, which says
u> they're *control* characters, not *printable* characters.

The rather obscure ANSI X3.32-1973 "Graphic Representation of the
Control Characters of ASCII" defines them for use when the
name-in-tiny-letters isn't used.  I found it in Joe Cambell's "C
Programmers Guide to Serial Communications" (Howard W. Sams & Co.)
[wish I had a copy of my own, had to reborrow it to get the ID] which
contains an ASCII chart poster with those symbols on it.

It goes something like this:  (they're in that aforementioned font, too)

^@	NUL	a hollow square, like the one used in Mac character sets for
		undefined characters
^A	SOH	the left column and top row of the cell set, like an
		inverted L
^B	STX	the bottom row and center column set, like a
		perpendicular symbol
^C	ETX	the right column and bottom row set, like a reversed L
^D	EOT	a single zig-zag, like a lightning bolt
^E	ENQ	a square with an X in it
^F	ACK	a check mark (tick mark to you Europeans)
^G	BEL	a hemisphere with two L shaped feet, I want to say
		"doodlebug", but it's probably more like an
		electronic component
^H	BS	an up arrow bent over leftwards into a U-shaped hook
		at the top
^I	HT	a right arrow with the barbs extended to the length of
		the shaft, more like a dart
^J	LF	three parallel horizontal lines
^K	VT	a downward pointing dart [Campbell says that instead
		of overloading LF with NewLine worsening the present
		incompatibilites, ANSI should have redefined this
		almost totally unused character]
^L	FF	a down dart with a second arrowhead midway down its
		shaft
^M	CR	a left dart
^N	SO	a circle with an X in it
^O	SI	a circle with a dot in the center
^P	DLE	a square with a horizontal line through the middle
^Q	DC1	a circle with the top right quarter sectioned off,
		that is, lines from the center to the top and right
^R	DC2	same, but lower right quarter
^S	DC3	same, but lower left quarter
^T	DC4	same, but top left quarter
^U	NAK	a check (tick) mark with a horizontal line thru the
		center
^V	SYN	a rectangle with the bottom cut in half and turned
		outward, like a bottomless rectangle with feet
^W	ETB	the right column and center row set, a T on its side
^X	CAN	a down pointing hollow triangle on an up pointing one,
		like an hourglass
^Y	EM	a vertical line with a fat dot in the middle
^Z	SUB	a backwards ?
^[	ESC	a circle with a line through the center
^\	FS	a square box with the top left quarter sectioned off
^]	GS	same, but bottom left
^^	RS	same, but bottom right
^_	US	same, but top right

u> For your collective amusement, here is a chart of ISO 8859/1 or "ISO Latin
u> Alphabet #1".  This was derived by some quick hacking on the X11 include
u> file "keysymdef.h" - yes, X11 uses the ISO character sets as well.
[table deleted]

Thanx, I appreciate it.  I'm still interested in 8859-3 (which I read
supports Esperanto), if it's not too much trouble could you tell me
a) what _its_ layout is, or b) how much to send to where?
-- 
"...billions and billions..."			| Mike Threepoint (D-ro 3)
			-- not Carl Sagan	| linhart at topaz.rutgers.edu
"...hundreds if not thousands..."		| FidoNet 1:107/513
			-- Pnews		| AT&T +1 (201)878-0937

Volume-Number: Volume 13, Number 52