From: "Meph" Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Standard codes (out of topic !?) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 16:17:03 +0100 Organization: BTS Lines: 105 Message-ID: <883uu3$1he2$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> Reply-To: "Meph" NNTP-Posting-Host: ascend-tk-p58.rhrz.uni-bonn.de X-Trace: f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de 950370051 50626 131.220.244.58 (12 Feb 2000 15:40:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Feb 2000 15:40:51 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:8571 #################### ## 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) // (\/) \\ // _|/\|_ \\ (( /-/ \-\ )) \\/-/_/\_\-\// _/-// \\-\_ (__) (__) // \\ //\ /\\ //\/ \/\\ //\/ \/\\ ___(_)_ _(_)___ ___________///____\\______________//____\\\____________ ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: Standard codes (out of topic !?) Date: 12 Feb 2000 22:30:09 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 80 Message-ID: <6uwvoa85y6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <883uu3$1he2$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 950391009 1571 10.0.3.2 (12 Feb 2000 21:30:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Feb 2000 21:30:09 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:8574 "Meph" 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, neil@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 ###### From: "Meph" Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: Standard codes (out of topic !?) Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 16:32:23 +0100 Organization: BTS Lines: 97 Message-ID: <8887dc$1lse$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> References: <883uu3$1he2$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> <6uwvoa85y6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Reply-To: "Meph" NNTP-Posting-Host: ascend-tk-p117.rhrz.uni-bonn.de X-Trace: f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de 950509804 55182 131.220.244.117 (14 Feb 2000 06:30:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de NNTP-Posting-Date: 14 Feb 2000 06:30:04 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2014.211 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2014.211 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.tli.de!do.de.uu.net!news-koe1.dfn.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:8606 Neil Franklin schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: 6uwvoa85y6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > "Meph" 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, neil@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 ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: Standard codes (out of topic !?) Date: 15 Feb 2000 21:34:48 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 78 Message-ID: <6un1p2jjbr.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <883uu3$1he2$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> <6uwvoa85y6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8887dc$1lse$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 950646891 752 10.0.3.2 (15 Feb 2000 20:34:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Feb 2000 20:34:51 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:8619 "Meph" writes: > Neil Franklin schrieb in im Newsbeitrag: 6uwvoa85y6. fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch... > > "Meph" 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, neil@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 ###### Message-ID: <38C11A06.5F0B5B20@worldnet.att.net> From: Dennis Hammes Organization: Scrawlmark Press X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-NSCPCD (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: Standard codes (out of topic !?) References: <883uu3$1he2$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> <6uwvoa85y6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <38a67aba.27276805@NEWS.DATAWEB.NL> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 81 Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 14:12:41 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.14.93.183 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 952179161 63.14.93.183 (Sat, 04 Mar 2000 14:12:41 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 14:12:41 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!wnmaster1!bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:8965 miK wrote: > > Neil Franklin wrote: > > > "Meph" 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/ ###### Message-ID: <38C120E7.BA0753F4@worldnet.att.net> From: Dennis Hammes Organization: Scrawlmark Press X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-NSCPCD (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: Standard codes (out of topic !?) References: <883uu3$1he2$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> <6uwvoa85y6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8887dc$1lse$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> <6un1p2jjbr.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 61 Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 14:42:02 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.14.93.183 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 952180922 63.14.93.183 (Sat, 04 Mar 2000 14:42:02 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 14:42:02 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!howland.erols.net!news-out.worldnet.att.net.MISMATCH!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!wnmaster1!bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.ascii-art:8966 Neil Franklin wrote: > > "Meph" 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, neil@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/