Standard codes (out of topic !?)

                     ####################
                     ## Standard codes ##
                     ####################


ASCII (USASCII)
=====================================================================

1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
- specified as 7-bit code for telecommunication and data exchange
- 100 of 128 positions are used (only upper case)

1965 ECMA-6 (European National Standards Institute, Genf)
- identically to ASCII with additional lower case
- 10 positions are free for national special characters

1968 ANSI's X3.4 (American National Standards Institute, New York)
- it becomes American standard

1974 ISO 646 (International Organization for Standardization, Genf)
- it becomes international standard

1974 DIN 66003
- it becomes German standard



Latin
=====================================================================

1981 IBM Codepage 437
- IBM uses the 8 bit and extended the code to 256 positions

1985 ECMA-94
- 8-bit Code including West-European special characters

1986 ISO 8859-1, called Latin-1
- it becomes international standard
- identically with IBM Codepage 819 and  850
  (positions partially changed)
- since 1997 completions for other languages (ISO 8859-1 to 10)
- used in Windows with some additional characters (it exists no code
  called ANSI !)

1986 DIN 66303
- it becomes German standard



Unicode (UCS)
=====================================================================

1987 Unicode (UCS)
- developed by Apple and Xerox
- 16 bit Code (65469 positions)
- should include characters for all languages
- at the moment only used by Windows NT and Java

1992 ISO/IEC 10646-1
- it becomes international standard



Meph., (sorry, my English is poor)


  #######################################################
  #         __  __   ___   ___   _  _                   #
  #        |M \/ M| |E__| |P_ \ | || | ASCII            #
  #        | |\/| | | _|  |  _/ | HH | & more           #
  #        |_|  |_| |E__| |_P   |_||_| ~~~~~~           #
  #                                                     #
  #         ASCII-, ANSI-, HTML-art, programs           #
  #                                                     #
  # http://studenten.freepage.de/meph/ascii/eng/eng.htm #
  ##############(\######################/)###############
              ((_))                    ((_))
               | |      ____  ____      | |
               | |     | /_\||/_\ |     | |
               |_|     |_(O)||(O)_|     |_|
              ((X))        [==]        ((X))
                \ \     ___ || ___     / /
                 \ \   /__\\||//__\   / /
                  \ \_____\\\///_____/ /
                   \O______)\/(______O/
                       _   =/\=   _
                      (X)  (\/)  (X)
                      (X)===/\===(X)
                      (X)  (\/)  (X)
                      (X)===/\===(X)
                       //  (\/)  \\
                      //  _|/\|_  \\
                     ((  /-/  \-\  ))
                      \\/-/_/\_\-\//
                      _/-//    \\-\_
                     (__)        (__)
                     //            \\
                    //\            /\\
                   //\/            \/\\
                  //\/              \/\\
              ___(_)_                _(_)___
  ___________///____\\______________//____\\\____________

"Meph" <UZS...@uni-bonn.de> writes:
>
> 1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
> - specified as 7-bit code for telecommunication and data exchange
> - 100 of 128 positions are used (only upper case)

Prepend this with: U.S./AT&T Teletype code. Existant at least in 1953
(I have used a device built then). Had 64 printable characters (codes
32-95) identical with todays ASCII with a few substitution (no. 95 (_)
was then a leftwards facing arrow, no. 94 (^) was an actual upwards
facing arrow, possibly others I do not know of).


> 1965 ECMA-6 (European National Standards Institute, Genf)

European Computer Manufacturers Association, actually.

ENSI does not exist, there exists an ETSI European Telecommunications
Standards Institute you may be confusing this with.


> 1981 IBM Codepage 437
> - IBM uses the 8 bit and extended the code to 256 positions

8 bit, but neither a predecessor to ISO-8859 (that is why DOS texts
make such a mess on Usenet), nor the first 8bit code. The honour of
both of those goes AFAIK to an DEC character set from the mid/late
1970s (VT52 or VT100 terminal character set).


> 1986 ISO 8859-1, called Latin-1
> - it becomes international standard
> - identically with IBM Codepage 819 and  850

More likely those IBM Codepages are the names of their ISO implementations.


> - used in Windows with some additional characters

Particulartly 128-159, which are empty in ISO, but also quite a few
other random changes that foul up 8bit exchanges (that is why Windows
texts make such a mess on Usenet).


> (it exists no code   called ANSI !)

The name ANSI properly refers to a set of terminal control codes
(function key reporting, cursor positioning, font switsching etc)
derived from the DEC VT100 terminal code.

What is today often misscalled ANSI is the PC/MS-DOS character set,
which is actually pure IBM Codepage 437.


> 1987 Unicode (UCS)
> - developed by Apple and Xerox

Actually derived from an Xerox character set, with additions by Apple
and others.


> - at the moment only used by Windows NT and Java

And Linux (as alternative to ISO8859-1, the default).


> 1992 ISO/IEC 10646-1
> - it becomes international standard

Actually ISO10646 is a 32 bit code with Unicode as its codes 0-65535.

Also ISO10646 defines UTF-8, a coding that uses single bytes. 1 byte
for chars 0-127 (= ASCII), 2 bytes for 128-2047, 3 bytes for
2048-65535 ... until max 6 bytes.


--
Neil Franklin, nei...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Wizzard, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, Mystic
Computer: a toy, speeds work so that you have more time to play

Neil Franklin wrote:

> "Meph" <UZS...@uni-bonn.de> writes:
> >
> > 1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
> > - specified as 7-bit code for telecommunication and data exchange
> > - 100 of 128 positions are used (only upper case)
> 
> Prepend this with: U.S./AT&T Teletype code. Existant at least in 1953
> (I have used a device built then). Had 64 printable characters (codes
> 32-95) identical with todays ASCII with a few substitution (no. 95 (_)
> was then a leftwards facing arrow, no. 94 (^) was an actual upwards
> facing arrow, possibly others I do not know of).

Was this the 1st ASCII-alike 7-bit code, to your knowledge? (meaning:
were the 0's and 1's arranged in the same order in US/AT&T as in ASCII?)

TMK (at least in the early days) teletypes used 5-bit Baudot-code,
"bracking" each sign with an independent start- and stop-element, thus
using 7 bits rather bluntly. And not being able to transmit a lowercase
char, cos' of being Baudot...

> > 1965 ECMA-6 (European National Standards Institute, Genf)
> 
> European Computer Manufacturers Association, actually.
> 
> ENSI does not exist, there exists an ETSI European Telecommunications
> Standards Institute you may be confusing this with.

Which 1 of these acronyms resides in Geneva?

> > 1981 IBM Codepage 437
> > - IBM uses the 8 bit and extended the code to 256 positions
> 
> 8 bit, but neither a predecessor to ISO-8859 (that is why DOS texts
> make such a mess on Usenet), nor the first 8bit code. The honour of
> both of those goes AFAIK to an DEC character set from the mid/late
> 1970s (VT52 or VT100 terminal character set).

Just pondering: "Telegraph was 5-bit, teletype went 7-bit, computers
called for 8-bit." Does this make any sense?

> > 1986 ISO 8859-1, called Latin-1
> > - it becomes international standard

AFAIK the purpose of ISO 8859 was to put non-Americanenglish chars in
the #128-#255 range (there was no room for weird european a's, o's and
u's in #0-#127). That's why American, English, Dutch, etc. keyboards
deal with Latin-1,.. and German, Hungarian, (Taiwanese??!) keyboards,
for example, are connected to a different ISO 8859(-?) character set.
All founded on ASCII, though.

> > - identically with IBM Codepage 819 and  850
> 
> More likely those IBM Codepages are the names of their ISO implementations.
>
>
> > - used in Windows with some additional characters
> 
> Particulartly 128-159, which are empty in ISO, but also quite a few
> other random changes that foul up 8bit exchanges (that is why Windows
> texts make such a mess on Usenet).

Not random. On purpose! The ISO-committee that dealt with the problem of
language-specific chars in 1986 didn't (and couldn't) foresee that nowadays
those exotic tribes gather on the Usenet and W3 (and try to communicate in
some sort of a 7-bit slang).

> > (it exists no code   called ANSI !)

ANSI X3.4?

> The name ANSI properly refers to a set of terminal control codes
> (function key reporting, cursor positioning, font switsching etc)
> derived from the DEC VT100 terminal code.
>
> What is today often misscalled ANSI is the PC/MS-DOS character set,
> which is actually pure IBM Codepage 437.

True, they don't know what they're talking about, but they provide good cracks.

> > 1987 Unicode (UCS)
> > - developed by Apple and Xerox
> 
> Actually derived from an Xerox character set, with additions by Apple
> and others.
> 
> 
> > - at the moment only used by Windows NT and Java
> 
> And Linux (as alternative to ISO8859-1, the default).
> 
> 
> > 1992 ISO/IEC 10646-1
> > - it becomes international standard
> 
> Actually ISO10646 is a 32 bit code with Unicode as its codes 0-65535.
> 
> Also ISO10646 defines UTF-8, a coding that uses single bytes. 1 byte
> for chars 0-127 (= ASCII), 2 bytes for 128-2047, 3 bytes for
> 2048-65535 ... until max 6 bytes.


Amen


--
where's the art?

Neil Franklin <nei...@franklin.ch.remove> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: 6uw...@chonsp.franklin.ch...
> "Meph" <UZS...@uni-bonn.de> writes:
> >
> > 1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
> > - specified as 7-bit code for telecommunication and data exchange
> > - 100 of 128 positions are used (only upper case)
>
> Prepend this with: U.S./AT&T Teletype code. Existant at least in 1953
> (I have used a device built then). Had 64 printable characters (codes
> 32-95) identical with todays ASCII with a few substitution (no. 95 (_)
> was then a leftwards facing arrow, no. 94 (^) was an actual upwards
> facing arrow, possibly others I do not know of).

Interesting, do you know where I can found a reference about this code ?
I'm not sure about the following...
I have read something about a (not standardized) code called FIELDATA (1957?).
It was developed by the US Army and one of his developers worked later
on the ASCII. Therefore FIELDATA might have had influenced the ASCII !?


> > 1965 ECMA-6 (European National Standards Institute, Genf)
>
> European Computer Manufacturers Association, actually.
>
> ENSI does not exist, there exists an ETSI European Telecommunications
> Standards Institute you may be confusing this with.
>

"ECMA" like "(E)uropean (C)omputer (M)anufacturers (A)ssociation", ok. :-)

>
> > 1981 IBM Codepage 437
> > - IBM uses the 8 bit and extended the code to 256 positions
>
> 8 bit, but neither a predecessor to ISO-8859 (that is why DOS texts
> make such a mess on Usenet), nor the first 8bit code. The honour of
> both of those goes AFAIK to an DEC character set from the mid/late
> 1970s (VT52 or VT100 terminal character set).

Where would you sort the Codepage 437 in ?

> > 1986 ISO 8859-1, called Latin-1
> > - it becomes international standard
> > - identically with IBM Codepage 819 and  850
>
> More likely those IBM Codepages are the names of their ISO implementations.
>
>
> > - used in Windows with some additional characters
>
> Particulartly 128-159, which are empty in ISO, but also quite a few
> other random changes that foul up 8bit exchanges (that is why Windows
> texts make such a mess on Usenet).
>
>
> > (it exists no code   called ANSI !)
>
> The name ANSI properly refers to a set of terminal control codes
> (function key reporting, cursor positioning, font switsching etc)
> derived from the DEC VT100 terminal code.
>
> What is today often misscalled ANSI is the PC/MS-DOS character set,
> which is actually pure IBM Codepage 437.

I think Microsofts curious usage of the the word 'ANSI' is the reason
for this problem.

>
> > 1987 Unicode (UCS)
> > - developed by Apple and Xerox
>
> Actually derived from an Xerox character set, with additions by Apple
> and others.
>
>
> > - at the moment only used by Windows NT and Java
>
> And Linux (as alternative to ISO8859-1, the default).
>
>
> > 1992 ISO/IEC 10646-1
> > - it becomes international standard
>
> Actually ISO10646 is a 32 bit code with Unicode as its codes 0-65535.
>
> Also ISO10646 defines UTF-8, a coding that uses single bytes. 1 byte
> for chars 0-127 (= ASCII), 2 bytes for 128-2047, 3 bytes for
> 2048-65535 ... until max 6 bytes.
>
>
> --
> Neil Franklin, nei...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
> Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Wizzard, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, Mystic
> Computer: a toy, speeds work so that you have more time to play

"Meph" <UZS...@uni-bonn.de> writes:

> Neil Franklin <nei...@franklin.ch.remove> schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: 6uwvoa85y6.
fs...@chonsp.franklin.ch...
> > "Meph" <UZS...@uni-bonn.de> writes:
> > >
> > > 1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
> > > - specified as 7-bit code for telecommunication and data exchange
> > > - 100 of 128 positions are used (only upper case)
> >
> > Prepend this with: U.S./AT&T Teletype code. Existant at least in 1953
> > (I have used a device built then). Had 64 printable characters (codes
> > 32-95) identical with todays ASCII with a few substitution (no. 95 (_)
> > was then a leftwards facing arrow, no. 94 (^) was an actual upwards
> > facing arrow, possibly others I do not know of).
>
> Interesting, do you know where I can found a reference about this
> code ?

Well actually what I looked up was an old paper based one. Most likely
out of print now.

Apart from that alt.folklore.computers is the best source on such
stuff. I have archived these discussions:

http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.folklore.computers/19971216_Old_ASCII_FS_GS_RS_etc
http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.folklore.computers/19981111_ASCII
http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.folklore.computers/19990907_1963_version_of_ASCII
http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.folklore.computers/19991031_The_history_of_ascii


> I'm not sure about the following...
> I have read something about a (not standardized) code called FIELDATA (1957?).
> It was developed by the US Army and one of his developers worked later
> on the ASCII. Therefore FIELDATA might have had influenced the ASCII !?

According to 19990907_1963_version_of_ASCII the ASCII Esc (27) code is
a legacy of Fieldata.


> > > 1981 IBM Codepage 437
> > > - IBM uses the 8 bit and extended the code to 256 positions
> >
> > 8 bit, but neither a predecessor to ISO-8859 (that is why DOS texts
> > make such a mess on Usenet), nor the first 8bit code. The honour of
> > both of those goes AFAIK to an DEC character set from the mid/late
> > 1970s (VT52 or VT100 terminal character set).
>
> Where would you sort the Codepage 437 in ?

Parallel development.


> > > (it exists no code   called ANSI !)
> >
> > The name ANSI properly refers to a set of terminal control codes
> > (function key reporting, cursor positioning, font switsching etc)
> > derived from the DEC VT100 terminal code.
> >
> > What is today often misscalled ANSI is the PC/MS-DOS character set,
> > which is actually pure IBM Codepage 437.
>
> I think Microsofts curious usage of the the word 'ANSI' is the reason
> for this problem.

Actually this one for once is not even Microsofts fault. Wow!

Their uses of the term ANSI was in the ANSI.SYS driver, that replaced
the standard MS-DOS "glass teletype" screen driver with an ANSI terminal.

How and who the started calling the character set ANSI I do not
know. But I doubt that to have been Microsoft (its not done so in
their official docs).


--
Neil Franklin, nei...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Wizzard, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, Mystic
Computer: a toy, speeds work so that you have more time to play

miK wrote:
> 
> Neil Franklin wrote:
> 
> > "Meph" <UZS...@uni-bonn.de> writes:
> > >
> > > 1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
> > > - specified as 7-bit code for telecommunication and data exchange
> > > - 100 of 128 positions are used (only upper case)
> >
> > Prepend this with: U.S./AT&T Teletype code. Existant at least in 1953
> > (I have used a device built then). Had 64 printable characters (codes
> > 32-95) identical with todays ASCII with a few substitution (no. 95 (_)
> > was then a leftwards facing arrow, no. 94 (^) was an actual upwards
> > facing arrow, possibly others I do not know of).
> 
> Was this the 1st ASCII-alike 7-bit code, to your knowledge? (meaning:
> were the 0's and 1's arranged in the same order in US/AT&T as in ASCII?)
> 
> TMK (at least in the early days) teletypes used 5-bit Baudot-code,
> "bracking" each sign with an independent start- and stop-element, thus
> using 7 bits rather bluntly. And not being able to transmit a lowercase
> char, cos' of being Baudot...
> 
The five-bit Baudot code (extant in the 1930s and said to have been developed
out of stock-ticker codes that began as Morse) preceded each code with a
two-bit Mark (high) and followed with a one-bit Space (low).  An RC filter
charged by the double Mark tweaked a synchronous motor that had to be set with
a tuning fork at each machine on the net; if this slipped more than a wee in
use, you got gobbledygook.  The regular double Mark is responsible for the
uniform "outboard motor" tone of the RTTY signals that used to be ubiquitous
all over the short-wave bands, and were standardised at 60 or 100 5-char
words/minute.  /All/ machines on any net had to be within 1/4 Mark of the same
speed.
  The code permitted 32 combinations (2**5), allowing most of the lower case
QWERTY keyboard in three rows of keys; however the whole character set was
rather shorter than 64 "printable" characters as only 30 codes were assignable
in any case:
  The "blank" (00000) was precluded by any stretch of blank tape or "air
time."
  The "rubout" (11111) was reserved for correcting errors on the tape, and
doubled to slam the carriage back into the lower case (LETTERS).
  The "space" (01000) had to be physically produced in either case.
  A NUMBERS code slapped the carriage into the upper case, the first row of
which was the QWERTY numbers.  Most of the other two rows of keys were machine
functions.
  " ' . , ; : were included in the second row of the upper case, but few used
them as it was faster and less-noisy to type QT/UQ AP(S) PD CM SMC CLN,
respectively, in the text stream (followed by two spaces).
  Punctuation had to be put in the upper case because their usual positions
were taken by machine functions that had to operate in both cases (CR-CR-LF,
BS, e.g.).
  CR acquired its modern position on the Baudot keyboard, replacing the
semicolon/colon (;/:) (the AT keyboard has one more rank of keys on the
right).  It was ALWAYS pressed/punched twice to allow the carriage time to
return to battery, else the next character would print in the middle of the
line on the way back.  (This protocol persists in the Gutenberg distribution
files and some (unidirectional) printers.)
  LF acquired its separate function on the Baudot TTY, CR being handled by a
motor and LF by a solenoid.  LF replaced the period (.).
  NUMBERS (if my fingers recall correctly 35 years later) replaced the comma
(,).  LETTERS was a muscle button on the face of the console, but also
sent/punched the rubout.
  Because LF was a separate function, overprinting was an available "art"
tool.  Much more popular than "ASCII art" was using the varying blackface of
different letters (enhanced by overprinting) to make "halftone" art, generally
of known subjects; existing tapes of such pages could be transmitted directly
to another tape punch simultaneously with being printed, and most ops had a
boxful of them.  Printing M over W gives a very-black halftone "dot," where
screen type yields something less than 50% black.
  BTW, the Baudot codes bear /no/ relation to later codes with more bits,
i.e., later codes were not arrived at by adding a bit or two to the Baudot
series; ASCII and most others are in numerical sequence, while Baudot isn't
even close.  It is said that the codes were distributed to allow the hammer
commutator maximum-average recovery time between characters, but a dirty
commutator will drop the second of certain pairs anyway.
-- 
  >^,,^<
The number you have reached is imaginary.
 Rotate your modem 90 degrees and reconnect.
http://blitz.org/fishhook/

Neil Franklin wrote:
> 
> "Meph" <UZS...@uni-bonn.de> writes:
> 
> > > > (it exists no code   called ANSI !)
> > >
> > > The name ANSI properly refers to a set of terminal control codes
> > > (function key reporting, cursor positioning, font switsching etc)
> > > derived from the DEC VT100 terminal code.
> > >
> > > What is today often misscalled ANSI is the PC/MS-DOS character set,
> > > which is actually pure IBM Codepage 437.
> >
> > I think Microsofts curious usage of the the word 'ANSI' is the reason
> > for this problem.
> 
> Actually this one for once is not even Microsofts fault. Wow!
> 
> Their uses of the term ANSI was in the ANSI.SYS driver, that replaced
> the standard MS-DOS "glass teletype" screen driver with an ANSI terminal.
> 
> How and who the started calling the character set ANSI I do not
> know. But I doubt that to have been Microsoft (its not done so in
> their official docs).
> 
> --
> Neil Franklin, nei...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
> Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Wizzard, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, Mystic
> Computer: a toy, speeds work so that you have more time to play

  Truth:  Neither IBM or MS miscalls "ASCII" "ANSI."  I can't even blame the
Ziff-Davis group or Reader's Digest (who reassigned the term "hacker" in 1989)
for this one.  It appears to be an iggerant public-domain thing.
  All ANSI codes, however, are /sequences of keystrokes/ written entirely in
ASCII, and all are begun with the ^[ "ESC" character.  No extra or replacement
emitted-binary codes result from an ANSI sequence, however the TSRs ANSI.SYS,
NANSI.SYS, and FANSI.SYS translate the sequences into machine functions when
DOS first loads the environment, and all are equivalent to the SET command
save that the variables can't be written in "English."
  A common ANSI function when WordStar was assaulted by IBM's lunatic
reassignment of CAPS LOCK where CTRL belongs (with the PS/2 keyboard), was to
include a short ANSI sequence in the PROMPT= string (the usual place to load
ANSI sequences) that simply switched them back no matter what the keycaps read
(all a key does is close an SPST switch in a polled matrix).
  Even more common is to assign various available machine-state data to appear
in the DOS prompt and other places on the screen, perhaps in attention-getting
colors.
  The only reason ANSI seems to be disappearing is that many sequences require
that the SHIFT-code (high keyboard-controller byte) be known.  These were
always hard to find, and differed with some makes of controller chips.
  Finally, WinDoze ignores ANSI screen assignments in favor of WinDoze video
drivers that load /after/ the environment.

  BTW, if anyone can point me to a list of high-byte SHIFT codes, I'd
appreciate it; this 14-year-old AT keyboard will wear out one of these days,
and I touch-type the CTRL key.  Can't write a TSR without them, either...
-- 
  >^,,^<
The number you have reached is imaginary.
 Rotate your screen 90 degrees and reconnect.
http://blitz.org/fishhook/