Re: 7-bit ascii standard?

Hi Bill,

Sorry for the confusion. The Internet/email is still very new to me (got
computer etc. this Christmas) and I'm still very much a novice.

What I usually do is send any math type post to myself first to make sure
the symbol/formatting works... In doing this I was assuming that whatever
worked in "Plain Text" was most likely pretty safe - obviously this is not
the case.

What is the 7-bit ascii standard? Is this a 'universal' standard?

Dan

BTW - The rectangle was supposed to be a divided sign.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Alves <alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu>
To: tuning@onelist.com <tuning@onelist.com>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 3:05 PM
Subject: [tuning] Re: The x5 sets

>From: alves@orion.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves)
>
>This character
>>(1)d � O � F = 1/0
> ^
>appears as a rectangle on my system. Is there a way to express your
>formulas using just the 7-bit ascii standard?
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
>^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
>^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
>^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
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>
>
>
>
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>From: "D. Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>
>Hi Bill,
>
>Sorry for the confusion. The Internet/email is still very new to me (got
>computer etc. this Christmas) and I'm still very much a novice.
>
>What I usually do is send any math type post to myself first to make sure
>the symbol/formatting works... In doing this I was assuming that whatever
>worked in "Plain Text" was most likely pretty safe - obviously this is not
>the case.
>
>What is the 7-bit ascii standard? Is this a 'universal' standard?
>
>
Dan,

Yes, it is a "universal" standard. The first 128 (7 bits) of ascii are
defined the same for all systems. This includes the normal alphanumeric
character set as well as the common punctuation and abbreviation marks
(things like ~!@#$%^&*:"<>?/[]-=`\ are all OK). Unfortunately, the other
128 bits (so-called "extended ascii") are defined differently on different
systems, and that extra bit is sometimes actually stripped away in during
its internet odyssey. These characters include special characters like the
division sign, greek letters, letters with diacritical marks, and other
special symbols.

I know this is a real pain when trying to convey mathematical expressions
(or many non-English words, for that matter), which is one reason why Gary
Morrison recently polled the list to find out if HTML was a reasonable
substitute for ascii. I believe that his conclusion was that there was too
much diversity in email software and platforms to use either HTML or
extended-ascii on the list.

Bill

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^
^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^
^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^
^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)607-7600 (fax) ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^