vi gobbles 8th bit

[Steve Lane]

I have been using vi for years, and was glad to see that MKS provided it
for MS-DOS when I had to do an IBM PC-AT application recently.

However, I needed to edit files containing 8-bit characters, in order
to draw fancy boxes etc. When I edited these files with vi, it noted that
I had 264 non-ascii characters, but chopped them to 7 bits before saving
the changed file.

Is there any option in vi that maintains 8-bit data on exit that anyone
is aware of? It obviously recognizes that they're there! And I doubt
whether this "feature" is particular to MKS.

Any help would be appreciated (other than suggestions to RTFM which
happens to be 20 miles away). I'd prefer to stay with vi if possible --
it has served me well in the past.

Steve.
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Steve Lane,                        UUCP: ...[yunexus, utgpu]!geac!steve
Software Solutions                 (416) 221-2830
108-755 Steeles Ave W, Willowdale, Ontario, M2R 2S6.