Original Usenet thread from alt.ascii-art, started 21 Feb 2005.
newsletters in text format
alt.ascii-art
· 25 messages · 21 Feb 2005 - 28 Feb 2005
I am looking for an eZine that helps journalists grasp the concept of text files. I have seen some sites that explain Unicode, UTF-8, UTF-16, etc., but nothing that helps to understand the possibilities and their usefulness. For instance http://www.unicode.org/consortium/newcomer.html <Unicode Validator> makes little sense to me when I attempt to utilize some of the hidden special symbols that can be generated from the keyboard using the alt + command combination keys. I have different objectives, however, one of which is to simply find easier ways to publish my blog "Pilcrow News". I thought text files might be easy, but then learned there`s much more to ascii than meets the eye (unicode). I read bits and pieces about how xml is considered easier to use for blogs than creating css html pages. I just recently figured out how to use css, but now I`m attempting to experiment with xml. Has anybody been here, done that already? -- ��New Millennium Calendar�� http://r.aguirre.home.att.net � NEWS http://berniesterling.home.att.net/rinato/pilcrow4.pdf
_.-In alt.ascii-art, Bier de Stone wrote the following -._ >, but then learned there`s much more to ascii than meets > the eye (unicode). unincode is not ascii. that is why there is a different name for it. see the faq for this group for more info -- .-')) asciipr0n.com/fp ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that ' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to ((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word. ((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
Faux_Pseudo wrote: > _.-In alt.ascii-art, Bier de Stone wrote the following -._ > >>, but then learned there`s much more to ascii than meets >>the eye (unicode). > > unincode is not ascii. that is why there is a different name for it. > see the faq for this group for more info Yeah the point to ascii-art is that there is *no* more than meets the eye! -- ABCGi - Atomic ______________________ <===> Bacterial Genetic |---------------------|| Chemical Infantrymen <=========== http://abcgi.fly.to =-+-=> |---------------------|'
ABCGi wrote: > Faux_Pseudo wrote: > >> _.-In alt.ascii-art, Bier de Stone wrote the following -._ >> >>> , but then learned there`s much more to ascii than meets the eye >>> (unicode). >> >> >> unincode is not ascii. that is why there is a different name for it. >> see the faq for this group for more info > > > Yeah the point to ascii-art is that there is *no* more than meets the > eye! > Oh, i see. so, i guess, then, I don't have the ability to save in ascii format anymore. Unless Western (Mac OS Roman) is the equivalent for ascii (under a different name). I don't see what harm it would do to expand a NG about ascii art to accommodate Unicode. BTW I couldn't find the FAQ. I know, I know what you're gonna say. Just open Simple Text as opposed to TextEdit to type up an ascii file. I guess I should. But what I`m really asking has absolutely nothing to do with drawing figures with type print. That was all fascinating in the 70`s, maybe even in the 80`s, especially self portraits on T`s. I see a few posts from bloggers and journalists wanting to upload their pages in various formats (including text format) to accommodate the differences in browser abilities. I think that's cool (even kind). My motive is more just to save memory space and hopefully get more exposure thru search engines. Kind of selfish. I`ll stick around only to look for such interests as I`m into layout design and could use some raw text, not Greeking text, to design some interesting newsletter blog combination pages. -- ��New Millennium Calendar�� http://r.aguirre.home.att.net � NEWS http://berniesterling.home.att.net/rinato/pilcrow4.pdf
_.-In alt.ascii-art, ABCGi wrote the following -._
> Yeah the point to ascii-art is that there is *no* more than meets the eye!
Well if that were the case then ascii-art sterio grams aren't
ascii-art.
_Memories of Tomorrow # 0005 # The surgical gloved one________________
| |
| |
| .-----------. Micheal Jackson was found dead late |
| | .---. | last night in his home. The offical |
| | | o o | | cause is note yet known but rumors |
| | \ d / | have speculated that he had been |
| | :F_P: | batteling a staph infection for the |
| | Death Watch | last few months as a complication |
| `-----------' of plastic surgury. |
| |
|______________________________________________________________________|
######################################Thu Feb 17 2005#################
--
.-')) asciipr0n.com/fp ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that
' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to
((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word.
((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
Bier de Stone wrote: > Oh, i see. so, i guess, then, I don't have the ability to save in ascii > format anymore. Unless Western (Mac OS Roman) is the equivalent for > ascii (under a different name). I don't see what harm it would do to > expand a NG about ascii art to accommodate Unicode. BTW I couldn't find > the FAQ. It's called *ASCII* art for a reason. ASCII cannot include Unicode, 'though it works the other way round. > I know, I know what you're gonna say. Just open Simple Text as opposed > to TextEdit to type up an ascii file. I guess I should. But what I`m > really asking has absolutely nothing to do with drawing figures with > type print. That was all fascinating in the 70`s, maybe even in the > 80`s, especially self portraits on T`s. I see a few posts from bloggers > and journalists wanting to upload their pages in various formats > (including text format) to accommodate the differences in browser > abilities. I think that's cool (even kind). My motive is more just to > save memory space and hopefully get more exposure thru search engines. > Kind of selfish. I`ll stick around only to look for such interests as > I`m into layout design and could use some raw text, not Greeking text, > to design some interesting newsletter blog combination pages. So be it. ASCII art is quite the active underground scene, as you'll see if you stay about for a while. It is, however, very set in its ways - not that that's a bad thing.
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 18:08:29 GMT, Bier de Stone <art...@att.net> wrote: >I am looking for an eZine that helps journalists grasp the concept of >text files. I have seen some sites that explain Unicode, UTF-8, UTF-16, >etc., but nothing that helps to understand the possibilities and their >usefulness. For instance http://www.unicode.org/consortium/newcomer.html ><Unicode Validator> makes little sense to me when I attempt to utilize >some of the hidden special symbols that can be generated from the >keyboard using the alt + command combination keys. Actually the first 128 characters of the unicode standard is the ASCII standard. However #32 thur #126 are used for this newsgroup. The Unicode standard above #127 is not ASCII. Unicode or parts of it has been applied to eypgtian hieroglyphs for reading and transmitting over the internet. Thousands of heiroglyphs to read if you have the script and can under- stand the glyphs. >I have different objectives, however, one of which is to simply find >easier ways to publish my blog "Pilcrow News". I thought text files >might be easy, but then learned there`s much more to ascii than meets >the eye (unicode). I read bits and pieces about how xml is considered >easier to use for blogs than creating css html pages. I just recently >figured out how to use css, but now I`m attempting to experiment with >xml. Has anybody been here, done that already? xml if i understand correctly is designed to describe information and html is used for the display of it. Sticking with ASCII uneless your blogs is in some type of readable glyphs in my opinion is the best bet. Have not toyed with xml yet. obascii --- .'""'. Ahh ((.)(.)) I Donno ('. _.'( ( .') Know ) (_.-'.')-/ ( '._ )_.'( _.' '.__.' _( ( ) )_ (_.-.''.-._) LGB lgbeard
"Bier de Stone" <art...@att.net> wrote in message news:SYwSd.64192$Th1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net... > ABCGi wrote: > > > Faux_Pseudo wrote: > > > >> _.-In alt.ascii-art, Bier de Stone wrote the following -._ > >> > >>> , but then learned there`s much more to ascii than meets the eye > >>> (unicode). > >> > >> > >> unincode is not ascii. that is why there is a different name for it. > >> see the faq for this group for more info > > > > > > Yeah the point to ascii-art is that there is *no* more than meets the > > eye! > > > Oh, i see. so, i guess, then, I don't have the ability to save in ascii > format anymore. Unless Western (Mac OS Roman) is the equivalent for > ascii (under a different name). I don't see what harm it would do to > expand a NG about ascii art to accommodate Unicode. BTW I couldn't find > the FAQ. > You might enjoy this place... http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=585451 you can see my older diddles here: http://www.geocities.com/neverclan/gamefaqs/arialascii.html It's all in Arial 10pt I think... But certainly does not fit here. Though, this does --> ObASCII: _,,--.._ /. ` ` . `. )| ` `. . / | ` ` `. / / ` ` `.`. / / ` ` `.`.'' / ' : <','/'` . ; ,-'.- ` , / _.-',-^` ` _.----- /`==::.,-' ` ` ,-' / / ` .; | |.. ` .,' `. | ':`....---. ,'`'. `. .`:.:.:.:.:-.. / `. `. .`ccoccoccoc'``./ `. `. `.`CQCCQCCCQCC/ `. `. `.`8O8O8O8O8( `. `. `.`_-_@-@_-; `. .'"'. '""' :,' ,--' `.` _,-- A `. _,',. (@) `. .-' `_ `. ,-^.`. A `. - _.-. (@) `.', ,'- `. _,-`__ `. _-,`| |,_-`| Zot '----'
Zotiel R. Bell wrote: >"Bier de Stone" <art...@att.net> wrote in message >news:SYwSd.64192$Th1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net... > > >> i guess, then, I don't have the ability to save in ascii >>format anymore. Unless Western (Mac OS Roman) is the equivalent for >>ascii (under a different name). >> >> >> > >you can see my older diddles here: >http://www.geocities.com/neverclan/gamefaqs/arialascii.html > > > Your old diddles were awesome and entertaining. That must take loads of patience. I would not be able to decide whether to use a period or a comma. I could really enjoy this NG if only to just watch what gets posted here. BTW, I'm still curious to know if Western (Mac OS Roman) is considered the equivalent to ascii. So I did a little test. I saved a file on my computer with some foreign accent marks (tildes, umlauts) and some symbols (corporate, (c), pilcrow, etc.) in text format specifying Unicode-8. When I re-opened the file, my symbols were replaced with something else. I do the same experiment with Western (Mac OS Roman) specified instead of Uni-8 and when I re-open the file, everything's intact. However, I do this experiment one last time, saving the file as Unicode-16. When I open it, my symbols are intact too. Does this prove that I can use either Western or Unicode-16 to save a file in ascii format? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. What are the rules of this NG on sending messages formatted with hyperlinks (html format)? I know that a formal URL will almost always appear as a hyperlink on a newsreader, but sometimes the html format is too long making text very unpleasant to read. I feel that one shouldn't have to reserve an entire line break to refer to a link in URL format just to make readability easier. And using <a href> tags don't work with my newsreader unless I select the proper tool to create linked text. I know an html message takes up more Kbs, but it isn`t as though I`m planning on attaching .jpg images. So, could somebody please get back to me on this question. -- ��New Millennium Calendar�� http://r.aguirre.home.att.net � NEWS http://berniesterling.home.att.net/rinato/pilcrow4.pdf
Bier de Stone wrote: > Zotiel R. Bell wrote: > >> "Bier de Stone" <art...@att.net> wrote in message >> news:SYwSd.64192$Th1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net... >> >>> i guess, then, I don't have the ability to save in ascii >>> format anymore. Unless Western (Mac OS Roman) is the equivalent for >>> ascii (under a different name). >> >> you can see my older diddles here: >> http://www.geocities.com/neverclan/gamefaqs/arialascii.html >> > Your old diddles were awesome and entertaining. That must take loads of > patience. I would not be able to decide whether to use a period or a > comma. I could really enjoy this NG if only to just watch what gets > posted here. > > BTW, I'm still curious to know if Western (Mac OS Roman) is considered > the equivalent to ascii. So I did a little test. I saved a file on my > computer with some foreign accent marks (tildes, umlauts) and some > symbols (corporate, (c), pilcrow, etc.) in text format specifying > Unicode-8. When I re-opened the file, my symbols were replaced with > something else. I do the same experiment with Western (Mac OS Roman) > specified instead of Uni-8 and when I re-open the file, everything's > intact. However, I do this experiment one last time, saving the file as > Unicode-16. When I open it, my symbols are intact too. Does this prove > that I can use either Western or Unicode-16 to save a file in ascii format? "Unicode-16 to save a file in ascii format?" This seems to be a dumb question. > Oh yeah, I almost forgot. What are the rules of this NG on sending > messages formatted with hyperlinks (html format)? I know that a formal > URL will almost always appear as a hyperlink on a newsreader, but > sometimes the html format is too long making text very unpleasant to > read. I feel that one shouldn't have to reserve an entire line break to > refer to a link in URL format just to make readability easier. And using > <a href> tags don't work with my newsreader unless I select the proper > tool to create linked text. I know an html message takes up more Kbs, > but it isn`t as though I`m planning on attaching .jpg images. So, could > somebody please get back to me on this question. OA: q------p -- ABCGi - Atomic ______________________ <===> Bacterial Genetic |---------------------|| Chemical Infantrymen <=========== http://abcgi.fly.to =-+-=> |---------------------|'
ABCGi wrote: > Bier de Stone wrote: > >> Does this prove that I can use either Western or Unicode-16 to save a >> file in ascii format? > > > "Unicode-16 to save a file in ascii format?" > > This seems to be a dumb question. > > OA: q------p > OK. I know I may have been caught dozing in computer lab when the teacher was lecturing on file format. I take your response as a HELL NO! Unicode-16 is bigger and uglier than Unicode-8. You have to admit, though, the whole idea that ascii characters being a limited version of the alphabet, doesn't apply as well to the font. I mean, that's where you lost me. OK, the first 128 characters of the unicode standard is the ascii standard AND characters 32 thru 126 are used for this NG. I don't see where you specify that characters 32 thru 126 have got to be fixed width. Isn`t a character a character? Or is that what distinguishes ascii from Western, Unicode-8, and Unicode-16? In other words, ascii not only encompasses particular letters and symbols, it also includes the fonts in which they are displayed. -- ��New Millennium Calendar�� http://r.aguirre.home.att.net � NEWS http://berniesterling.home.att.net/rinato/pilcrow4.pdf
Bier de Stone wrote in message <kxASd.259063$w62...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>: > OK. I know I may have been caught dozing in computer lab when the > teacher was lecturing on file format. I take your response as a HELL NO! > Unicode-16 is bigger and uglier than Unicode-8. You have to admit, > though, the whole idea that ascii characters being a limited version of > the alphabet, doesn't apply as well to the font. I mean, that's where > you lost me. > > OK, the first 128 characters of the unicode standard is the ascii > standard AND characters 32 thru 126 are used for this NG. I don't see > where you specify that characters 32 thru 126 have got to be fixed > width. Isn`t a character a character? Or is that what distinguishes > ascii from Western, Unicode-8, and Unicode-16? In other words, ascii not > only encompasses particular letters and symbols, it also includes the > fonts in which they are displayed. I think you need some theory here. At the beginning, you have characters. Defining exactly what is a characters is somewhat complicated (is the French oe ligature one or two characters? and what about complex Indian ligatures?), but it does not concern programmers: it is a linguist work. Linguist provide a list of characters, they define them anyhow, and the task of the programmers is to devise a way to encode a sequence of characters into a sequence of bytes in an unambiguous way. Such a correspondance is called an encoding. ASCII is one of the first efforts to have a standard encoding. At this time, programmers speak English, and the bytes are reliably 7 bits wide, so the code chosen use one byte per character, and allow to code the characters required for basic English. Some time later, the standard of 8 bits bytes emerged, and non-English-speaking had started using computer, so there was a rush for the 128 more bytes values to code various language-specific characters. Most of these encodings have this in common: there is always a one-to-one relation between bytes and characters. There is more: this relation is almost always the same as ASCII for the values between 0 and 127. This has an advantage: consider a protocol that understands various ASCII characters as markup (the quote for a litteral string, for example), and treates every other character with the rule "I do not know, I let it through". If the software handling such a protocol is not too badly written, the "I do not know, I let it through" rule will apply also to the bytes values beyond 128. Such programs and protocols are called 8bits clean. With one byte per characters encodings which extends ASCII, there is no need for intermediary software to know the encodings: the input software has to know it, the output software has to know it too, but it is enough for the intermediary software to be 8bits clean: all non-ASCII characters will just go through unchanged. Such encodings are called compatible with ASCII. Well, 8 bits bytes means 256 bytes values, that is not enough for Chinese or Japanese. Chinese and Japanese programmers invented encodings with several bytes per character, sometimes compatible with ASCII (for exemple the ASCII value if the character is available in ASCII, and two 128-255 bytes else). Unicode is an effort to unify everything. First of all, Unicode is not an encoding. I repeat: UNICODE IS NOT AN ENCODING. Unicode is a collection of characters. It is a big collection, and intends to be universal, but there are no bytes values involved. The characters in the collection are numbered, because it is very useful, but it is a mathematical numbering, it is not theorically bounded (but alas, it is politically bounded, see later). As such, Unicode can be used as a bridge between encodings. For exemple, take the Euro currency symbol. It has code 0x80 in the windows-1252 encoding, 0xA4 in the ISO-8859-15 encoding, 0xAC in the LaTeX T1 encoding, and so on. How to handle that without having tables for every single pair of encodings? Unicode provides a way: the only need is a table to match each encoding with Unicode. But there is more: along with Unicode were designed encodings to logically code the Unicode numbers into bytes sequences. At the time before one descovered a mine of more than sixty thousand old Chinese ideograms, one thought that 16 bits was enough to code all, so one used 2-bytes integers to code the Unicode characters. This is UCS-2. Well, this is UCS-2 big endian or UCS-2 little endian. This is always a problem. Now, anyone thinks that 2^32 will be enough for everyone, so we have UCS-4: 4-bytes integers to code the Unicode characters. And again, the endianness problem. Alas, a lot of programs used UCS-2, so one invented a dirty hack to extend it: a few unaffected values were used as "surrogates", and along with a second value allow to code up to about one million values. This is UTF-16. UTF-16 is a verry bad standard. And as usual with bad standards, it is heavily supported by a few big companies writing bad software. In this case: microsoft, Sun (with java), IBM. To avoid upsetting these monsters, the Unicode consortium has decided never to go beyond the possibilities of UTF-16. There is also UTF-8. It is a bit complicated, with characters using between one and six bytes, to code values up to 2^31, but it has a lot of advantages: - it is compatible with ASCII, so it can be handled by 8bit-clean programs; - the lexical order of its bytes is the same as the lexical order of the characters they code; - it is corruption-proof: if some bytes are lost or wrong, it is possible to recover at the next uncorrupted character; - it is quite compact for western languages, with not much more than one byte per character; - it has no endianness problem. UTF-8 is the Good encoding to use nowadays. Now, for your macintosh gibberish: mac roman, as far as I know, is a one-byte-per-character ASCII-compatible encoding used by apple, since they never can do anything like others. Unicode-8 and Unicode-16 does not mean anything at all, but I supose the first should be written "UTF-8" and the second either "UTF-16" or "UCS-2". Now, why those groups do not like Unicode. Well, consider the smileys. To a certain extent, the first who spotted that a colon, a dash and a parenthesis looked like a smiling face was a genius. But it does not require a genius to see that the character numbered 9786 in Unicode is a smiling face; it is even written in its name, "WHITE SMILING FACE". Somehow, using Unicode to make so-called-ASCII-art is cheating. As for the last question: you can use proportional-spaced fonts and do characters-based art, but it will be completely specific to the font you used. Change the font, the drawing will be completely wrong. And you have no way to describe simply the spacing of a font: you have to write the whole metrics. Except for monospaced fonts: there is nothing to say beyond that word: monospaced. Furthermore, monospaced fonts are the historical support for ASCII-art: people used to do ASCII-art on terminals and line printers a long time before they were capable of displaying proportional-spaced fonts.
_.-In alt.ascii-art, Nicolas George wrote the following -._ <snip good stuff> > Now, anyone thinks that 2^32 will be enough for everyone, so we have UCS-4: > 4-bytes integers to code the Unicode characters. And again, the endianness > problem. <snip good stuff> You almost got post of the month. But you didn't have any OA. OA: _Memories of Tomorrow # 0008 # Aquila or bust_________________________ | .----. | | '-----.\ __ After Mathew Broadric gets a life time | | ||__________/ \ achievement award sales of Lady Hawk | | ||||||||||||{\\} sky rocket and it is named the most | | ||||||||||||{--'\ under appreciated movie of all time. | | ||||||||||||{ \ } In this reporters opinion the music | | __/ ||________|{__|_} during the first half still sucks and | | / /.---. .---. \ hideously dates the movie as an 80's | | ___| // \ / \:F_P:/ \ / \_| movie. | | |_____||--X--| |==X==| | | `./ \.' `./ \.' | |______________________________________________________________________| ######################################Sat Feb 19 2005################# -- .-')) asciipr0n.com/fp ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that ' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to ((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word. ((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
Faux_Pseudo wrote: > _.-In alt.ascii-art, Nicolas George wrote the following -._ > <snip good stuff> > >>Now, anyone thinks that 2^32 will be enough for everyone, so we have UCS-4: >>4-bytes integers to code the Unicode characters. And again, the endianness >>problem. > > <snip good stuff> > > You almost got post of the month. But you didn't have any OA. Yeah not only did you post what I couldn't be bothered to say - you by far exceeded my ability to say it. That needs to go in the FAQ and has been saved to my special special ASCII directory. > OA: > > _Memories of Tomorrow # 0008 # Aquila or bust_________________________ > | .----. | > | '-----.\ __ After Mathew Broadric gets a life time | > | ||__________/ \ achievement award sales of Lady Hawk | > | ||||||||||||{\\} sky rocket and it is named the most | > | ||||||||||||{--'\ under appreciated movie of all time. | > | ||||||||||||{ \ } In this reporters opinion the music | > | __/ ||________|{__|_} during the first half still sucks and | > | / /.---. .---. \ hideously dates the movie as an 80's | > | ___| // \ / \:F_P:/ \ / \_| movie. | > | |_____||--X--| |==X==| | > | `./ \.' `./ \.' | > |______________________________________________________________________| > > ######################################Sat Feb 19 2005################# ~ ~ OA: - - ` '"' -- ABCGi - Atomic ______________________ <===> Bacterial Genetic |---------------------|| Chemical Infantrymen <=========== http://abcgi.fly.to =-+-=> |---------------------|'
_.-In alt.ascii-art, ABCGi wrote the following -._ >> <snip good stuff> > > Yeah not only did you post what I couldn't be bothered to say - you by > far exceeded my ability to say it. That needs to go in the FAQ and has > been saved to my special special ASCII directory. I am still trying to figure out what the OP wants. If he wants to save his blogs as ASCII files and is running OSX then he can, in a worst case situtation, open a sh prompt, type $ cat >>file.txt<<EOF And then past his content into it and end it with EOF on a line by its self. -- .-')) asciipr0n.com/fp ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that ' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to ((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word. ((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
Nicolas George wrote: >Bier de Stone wrote in message ><kxASd.259063$w62...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>: > > [snip] >>OK, the first 128 characters of the unicode standard is the ascii >>standard AND characters 32 thru 126 are used for this NG. I don't see >>where you specify that characters 32 thru 126 have got to be fixed >>width. Isn`t a character a character? Or is that what distinguishes >>ascii from Western, Unicode-8, and Unicode-16? In other words, ascii not >>only encompasses particular letters and symbols, it also includes the >>fonts in which they are displayed. >> >> > >I think you need some theory here. > [snip] >Linguist provide a list of characters, and the task >of the programmers is to devise a way to encode a sequence of characters >into a sequence of bytes in an unambiguous way. Such a correspondance is >called an encoding. > >ASCII is one of the first efforts to have a standard encoding. At this time, >programmers speak English, and the bytes are reliably 7 bits wide, so the >code chosen use one byte per character... > >Some time later, the standard of 8 bits bytes emerged, and >non-English-speaking had started using computer, so there was a rush for the >128 more bytes values to code various language-specific characters. > > [snip] >Well, 8 bits bytes means 256 bytes values, that is not enough for Chinese or >Japanese. Chinese and Japanese programmers invented encodings with several >bytes per character... > >Unicode is an effort to unify everything. First of all, Unicode is not an encoding. I repeat: UNICODE IS NOT AN ENCODING. > > [snip] >At the time before one descovered a mine of more than sixty thousand old >Chinese ideograms, one thought that 16 bits was enough to code all, so one >used 2-bytes integers to code the Unicode characters. This is UCS-2. Well, >this is UCS-2 big endian or UCS-2 little endian. This is always a problem. > >UTF-16 is a verry bad standard. And as usual with bad standards, it is >heavily supported by a few big companies writing bad software. In this case: >microsoft, Sun (with java), IBM. To avoid upsetting these monsters, the >Unicode consortium has decided never to go beyond the possibilities of >UTF-16. > >There is also UTF-8. It is a bit complicated... but it has a lot of >advantages: > >- it is compatible with ASCII, so it can be handled by 8bit-clean programs; > >- the lexical order of its bytes is the same as the lexical order of the > characters they code; > >- it is corruption-proof: if some bytes are lost or wrong, it is possible to > recover at the next uncorrupted character; > >- it is quite compact for western languages, with not much more than one > byte per character; > >- it has no endianness problem. > >UTF-8 is the Good encoding to use nowadays. > > [snip] >Monospaced fonts are the historical support >for ASCII-art: people used to do ASCII-art on terminals and line printers a >long time before they were capable of displaying proportional-spaced fonts. > > I found your theory to be interesting and information. You answer questions effectively without straying far from the methodology that drives this group. I enjoyed reading the comments from the regulars here that your expos� helped to inspire. I think if I knew as much about the subject, I wouldn`t change a single word and solicit my draft to all the syndicated publications in the area. That's just my point of view on symbolic lettering because my own interpretation emphasizes the similarities between minuscule/majiscule characters. In other words, crossing the number 7 when a person handwrites may appear like a "f" or the mirror appearance of 1s, ls, Is� Nobody ever thinks to accent their type with strikethru lines for Zs and 7s, which they might do given the opportunity to write it with pen or pencil. And I`m sure you`ve seen NG users call themselves something like l<enny and VVolfgang. I understand now. To create crossed sevens and crossed zs means designing a completely new font because nobody in their right mind (linguist) is going to do it using the strikethru feature. -- ��New Millennium Calendar�� http://r.aguirre.home.att.net � NEWS http://berniesterling.home.att.net/rinato/pilcrow4.pdf
Bier de Stone <art...@att.net> wrote: >Nicolas George wrote: > >>Bier de Stone wrote in message >><kxASd.259063$w62...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>: >> >> >[snip] > >>>OK, the first 128 characters of the unicode standard is the ascii >>>standard AND characters 32 thru 126 are used for this NG. I don't see >>>where you specify that characters 32 thru 126 have got to be fixed >>>width. Isn`t a character a character? Or is that what distinguishes >>>ascii from Western, Unicode-8, and Unicode-16? In other words, ascii not >>>only encompasses particular letters and symbols, it also includes the >>>fonts in which they are displayed. >>> >>> >> >>I think you need some theory here. >> >[snip] > >>Linguist provide a list of characters, and the task >>of the programmers is to devise a way to encode a sequence of characters >>into a sequence of bytes in an unambiguous way. Such a correspondance is >>called an encoding. >> >>ASCII is one of the first efforts to have a standard encoding. At this time, >>programmers speak English, and the bytes are reliably 7 bits wide, so the >>code chosen use one byte per character... >> >>Some time later, the standard of 8 bits bytes emerged, and >>non-English-speaking had started using computer, so there was a rush for the >>128 more bytes values to code various language-specific characters. >> >> >[snip] > >>Well, 8 bits bytes means 256 bytes values, that is not enough for Chinese or >>Japanese. Chinese and Japanese programmers invented encodings with several >>bytes per character... >> >>Unicode is an effort to unify everything. First of all, Unicode is not an encoding. I repeat: UNICODE IS NOT AN ENCODING. >> >> >[snip] > >>At the time before one descovered a mine of more than sixty thousand old >>Chinese ideograms, one thought that 16 bits was enough to code all, so one >>used 2-bytes integers to code the Unicode characters. This is UCS-2. Well, >>this is UCS-2 big endian or UCS-2 little endian. This is always a problem. >> >>UTF-16 is a verry bad standard. And as usual with bad standards, it is >>heavily supported by a few big companies writing bad software. In this case: >>microsoft, Sun (with java), IBM. To avoid upsetting these monsters, the >>Unicode consortium has decided never to go beyond the possibilities of >>UTF-16. >> >>There is also UTF-8. It is a bit complicated... but it has a lot of >>advantages: >> >>- it is compatible with ASCII, so it can be handled by 8bit-clean programs; >> >>- the lexical order of its bytes is the same as the lexical order of the >> characters they code; >> >>- it is corruption-proof: if some bytes are lost or wrong, it is possible to >> recover at the next uncorrupted character; >> >>- it is quite compact for western languages, with not much more than one >> byte per character; >> >>- it has no endianness problem. >> >>UTF-8 is the Good encoding to use nowadays. >> >> >[snip] > >>Monospaced fonts are the historical support >>for ASCII-art: people used to do ASCII-art on terminals and line printers a >>long time before they were capable of displaying proportional-spaced fonts. >> >> >I found your theory to be interesting and information. You answer >questions effectively without straying far from the methodology that >drives this group. I enjoyed reading the comments from the regulars here >that your expos� helped to inspire. > >I think if I knew as much about the subject, I wouldn`t change a single >word and solicit my draft to all the syndicated publications in the >area. That's just my point of view on symbolic lettering because my own >interpretation emphasizes the similarities between minuscule/majiscule >characters. In other words, crossing the number 7 when a person >handwrites may appear like a "f" or the mirror appearance of 1s, ls, Is� >Nobody ever thinks to accent their type with strikethru lines for Zs and >7s, which they might do given the opportunity to write it with pen or >pencil. And I`m sure you`ve seen NG users call themselves something like >l<enny and VVolfgang. I understand now. To create crossed sevens and >crossed zs means designing a completely new font because nobody in their >right mind (linguist) is going to do it using the strikethru feature. This guy is a major kook.
Bateau wrote: >Bier de Stone <art...@att.net> wrote: > > >>Nicolas George wrote: >> >> >> >>>Bier de Stone wrote in message >>><kxASd.259063$w62...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>[snip] >> >> >> >>>>OK, the first 128 characters of the unicode standard is the ascii >>>>standard AND characters 32 thru 126 are used for this NG. I don't see >>>>where you specify that characters 32 thru 126 have got to be fixed >>>>width. Isn`t a character a character? Or is that what distinguishes >>>>ascii from Western, Unicode-8, and Unicode-16? In other words, ascii not >>>>only encompasses particular letters and symbols, it also includes the >>>>fonts in which they are displayed. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>I think you need some theory here. >>> >>> >>> >>[snip] >> >> >> >>>Linguist provide a list of characters, and the task >>>of the programmers is to devise a way to encode a sequence of characters >>>into a sequence of bytes in an unambiguous way. Such a correspondance is >>>called an encoding. >>> >>>ASCII is one of the first efforts to have a standard encoding. At this time, >>>programmers speak English, and the bytes are reliably 7 bits wide, so the >>>code chosen use one byte per character... >>> >>>Some time later, the standard of 8 bits bytes emerged, and >>>non-English-speaking had started using computer, so there was a rush for the >>>128 more bytes values to code various language-specific characters. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>[snip] >> >> >> >>>Well, 8 bits bytes means 256 bytes values, that is not enough for Chinese or >>>Japanese. Chinese and Japanese programmers invented encodings with several >>>bytes per character... >>> >>>Unicode is an effort to unify everything. First of all, Unicode is not an encoding. I repeat: UNICODE IS NOT AN ENCODING. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>[snip] >> >> >> >>>At the time before one descovered a mine of more than sixty thousand old >>>Chinese ideograms, one thought that 16 bits was enough to code all, so one >>>used 2-bytes integers to code the Unicode characters. This is UCS-2. Well, >>>this is UCS-2 big endian or UCS-2 little endian. This is always a problem. >>> >>>UTF-16 is a verry bad standard. And as usual with bad standards, it is >>>heavily supported by a few big companies writing bad software. In this case: >>>microsoft, Sun (with java), IBM. To avoid upsetting these monsters, the >>>Unicode consortium has decided never to go beyond the possibilities of >>>UTF-16. >>> >>>There is also UTF-8. It is a bit complicated... but it has a lot of >>>advantages: >>> >>>- it is compatible with ASCII, so it can be handled by 8bit-clean programs; >>> >>>- the lexical order of its bytes is the same as the lexical order of the >>> characters they code; >>> >>>- it is corruption-proof: if some bytes are lost or wrong, it is possible to >>> recover at the next uncorrupted character; >>> >>>- it is quite compact for western languages, with not much more than one >>> byte per character; >>> >>>- it has no endianness problem. >>> >>>UTF-8 is the Good encoding to use nowadays. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>[snip] >> >> >> >>>Monospaced fonts are the historical support >>>for ASCII-art: people used to do ASCII-art on terminals and line printers a >>>long time before they were capable of displaying proportional-spaced fonts. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>I found your theory to be interesting and information. You answer >>questions effectively without straying far from the methodology that >>drives this group. I enjoyed reading the comments from the regulars here >>that your expos� helped to inspire. >> >>I think if I knew as much about the subject, I wouldn`t change a single >>word and solicit my draft to all the syndicated publications in the >>area. That's just my point of view on symbolic lettering because my own >>interpretation emphasizes the similarities between minuscule/majiscule >>characters. In other words, crossing the number 7 when a person >>handwrites may appear like a "f" or the mirror appearance of 1s, ls, Is� >>Nobody ever thinks to accent their type with strikethru lines for Zs and >>7s, which they might do given the opportunity to write it with pen or >>pencil. And I`m sure you`ve seen NG users call themselves something like >>l<enny and VVolfgang. I understand now. To create crossed sevens and >>crossed zs means designing a completely new font because nobody in their >>right mind (linguist) is going to do it using the strikethru feature. >> >> > >This guy is a major kook. > > Ja, I`m da von dat isn`t reasonable. -- ��New Millennium Calendar�� http://r.aguirre.home.att.net � NEWS http://berniesterling.home.att.net/rinato/pilcrow4.pdf
_.-In alt.ascii-art, Bier de Stone wrote the following -._ >>This guy is a major kook. >> >> > > Ja, I`m da von dat isn`t reasonable. No. Your the one who doesn't know how to trim the 135 lines they are not replying to so that you could make a one line post. OA: _Memories of Tomorrow # 0010 # Inflation of money but not minds_______ | __ __ __ | | /o \ / \ /o \ | | |o o| |o o | | o| | | | o | | o o| | o | The Lottery today anounced that the | | | o | |o | |o o| projected jackpot for this weeks | | |o o | | o o| | o o| drawing will top 1 billion dollars. | | \ / \ o/ \ o/ | | ---- ---- ---- | | / \\\ / \\\ / \\\ | | / 5 \ / 7 :F_P: 4 \ | |______________________________________________________________________| ######################################Mon Feb 21 2005################# -- .-')) fauxascii.com ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that ' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to ((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word. ((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 06:44:32 +0000, Bier de Stone wrote: > OK, the first 128 characters of the unicode standard is the ascii > standard AND characters 32 thru 126 are used for this NG. I don't see > where you specify that characters 32 thru 126 have got to be fixed > width. Isn`t a character a character? Or is that what distinguishes > ascii from Western, Unicode-8, and Unicode-16? In other words, ascii not > only encompasses particular letters and symbols, it also includes the > fonts in which they are displayed. The subset of ASCII used here only specifies the character set, not the font. You need a fixed width font for it to look right, one where every character uses the same amout of space. Variable width fonts, where an I uses less space than a W, will not work. The Courier fonts work well in both Windows and X-Windows. So for OS-X that should be an option. Bob McConnell N2SPP
Faux_Pseudo wrote: > _.-In alt.ascii-art, ABCGi wrote the following -._ > >>><snip good stuff> >> >>Yeah not only did you post what I couldn't be bothered to say - you by >>far exceeded my ability to say it. That needs to go in the FAQ and has >>been saved to my special special ASCII directory. > > I am still trying to figure out what the OP wants. If he wants to > save his blogs as ASCII files and is running OSX then he can, in a > worst case situtation, open a sh prompt, type > $ cat >>file.txt<<EOF OP = Off Poster ???? x-} > And then past his content into it and end it with EOF on a line by its > self. ,`, OA: twilight zone ~p """"" ,{}- '|' _________\-----/_____________________,,...|...,,___ -- ABCGi - Atomic ______________________ <===> Bacterial Genetic |---------------------|| Chemical Infantrymen <=========== http://abcgi.fly.to =-+-=> |---------------------|'
Faux_Pseudo wrote: > _.-In alt.ascii-art, Bier de Stone wrote the following -._ > >>>This guy is a major kook. >>> >> >>Ja, I`m da von dat isn`t reasonable. > > No. Your the one who doesn't know how to trim the 135 lines they are > not replying to so that you could make a one line post. > > OA: > > _Memories of Tomorrow # 0010 # Inflation of money but not minds_______ > | __ __ __ | > | /o \ / \ /o \ | > | |o o| |o o | | o| | > | | o | | o o| | o | The Lottery today anounced that the | > | | o | |o | |o o| projected jackpot for this weeks | > | |o o | | o o| | o o| drawing will top 1 billion dollars. | > | \ / \ o/ \ o/ | > | ---- ---- ---- | > | / \\\ / \\\ / \\\ | > | / 5 \ / 7 :F_P: 4 \ | > |______________________________________________________________________| > > ######################################Mon Feb 21 2005################# Another good comic. OA: Minor Kook Major Kook kook KOOK b __ B __ h| H| -- ABCGi - Atomic ______________________ <===> Bacterial Genetic |---------------------|| Chemical Infantrymen <=========== Kooks Belong Here =-+-=> |---------------------|'
_.-In alt.ascii-art, ABCGi wrote the following -._ > Another good comic. I have started standerdizing them a little. Trying to make them all the same size so that I don't run into the Nerd Boy problem if I eventually make enough of them to print. Every seventh one will be "Sunday" sized. > OA: Minor Kook Major Kook > > kook KOOK > b __ B __ > h| H| /That/ was funny. OA: Alt art for Memories of Tomorrow # 000x # Aquila or bust ^^.--'\__^_ _.- _^_^__^^^_...--'^^^ ^^ ^^^ `^._ .-'^^^ ____..--'^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^`^' ^^^ ^.-------'^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^`^' ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ __^^^____________________________________________________________ ____ . -.-_.-' `-.-'-._ \_ _ \_ --._.-' ;-./ \_ / `-._.- --' / `\ `- .'\ ######################################Sat Feb 19 2005################# I don't always get them right on the first try. -- .-')) fauxascii.com ('-. | It's a damn poor mind that ' ..- .:" ) ( ":. -.. ' | can only think of one way to ((,,_;'.;' UIN=66618055 ';. ';_,,)) | spell a word. ((_.YIM=Faux_Pseudo :._)) | - Andrew Jackson
"ABCGi" <abc...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:421...@dnews.tpgi.com.au... > Faux_Pseudo wrote: > > _.-In alt.ascii-art, ABCGi wrote the following -._ > > > >>><snip good stuff> > >> > >>Yeah not only did you post what I couldn't be bothered to say - you by > >>far exceeded my ability to say it. That needs to go in the FAQ and has > >>been saved to my special special ASCII directory. > > > > I am still trying to figure out what the OP wants. If he wants to > > save his blogs as ASCII files and is running OSX then he can, in a > > worst case situtation, open a sh prompt, type > > $ cat >>file.txt<<EOF > > OP = Off Poster ???? x-} > Original Poster
Rufus V. Smith wrote: > "ABCGi" <abc...@yahoo.com> wrote in message > news:421...@dnews.tpgi.com.au... > >>Faux_Pseudo wrote: >> >>>_.-In alt.ascii-art, ABCGi wrote the following -._ >>> >>> >>>>><snip good stuff> >>>> >>>>Yeah not only did you post what I couldn't be bothered to say - you by >>>>far exceeded my ability to say it. That needs to go in the FAQ and has >>>>been saved to my special special ASCII directory. >>> >>>I am still trying to figure out what the OP wants. If he wants to >>>save his blogs as ASCII files and is running OSX then he can, in a >>>worst case situtation, open a sh prompt, type >>>$ cat >>file.txt<<EOF >> >>OP = Off Poster ???? x-} > > Original Poster OP Rum? _---_ |-___-| | | | RUM | |_ _| --- -- ABCGi - Atomic ______________________ <===> Bacterial Genetic |---------------------|| Chemical Infantrymen <=========== http://abcgi.fly.to =-+-=> |---------------------|'
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