From: dski@ms17.hinet.net ()
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: The Evils of ASCII
Date: 29 Dec 1999 12:52:19 GMT
Organization: DCI HiNet
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Never having heard anything of the sort before, and wondering if this
thesis is a remnant of a bygone age, I offer for your consideration:
   http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-12/msg00675.html
   http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-12/msg00677.html
   http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-12/msg00683.html
   http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-12/msg00684.html

The messages linked to above were inspired by:
   http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-12/msg00644.html

Dan Strychalski    dski at em ess (mail server!) 17 dot hinet dot net

######

From: jsavard@domain.ctry (John Savard)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The Evils of ASCII
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 11:32:58 GMT
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dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) wrote, in part:
>In article <386b58d2.1722257@news.ecn.ab.ca>,
>John Savard <jsavard@tenMAPSONeerf.edmonton.ab.ca> wrote:

>>(In any case, there _is_ "ASCII over AMTOR", so one can represent
>>ASCII by a 5-level code if one needs to.)

>Damn it, now I'm thinking about UNICODE over UTF-8 over ASCII over AMTOR,
>and it's your fault.

>I've been trying to figure out how you might work with ASCII using a 5-bit
>device (say, a Teletype) rather than just using it on a 5-bit channel.  It
>would be pretty ugly, I can tell you that.

I'm assuming that the "5-bit ASCII" the fellow wanted might look
something like this:

 1                          23456
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
  !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:
    [\]^_`  ;<=>?@  {|}~

with 26 control codes, and a different shifting scheme from that of
5-level code. Space might be special character 2, but CR and LF would
be shifted control codes.

As I noted, this wouldn't fit in a 7-bit representation any more; the
only way it could is if the punctuation marks were as limited as those
of 5-level code (or lower case was omitted).

(ASCII over AMTOR only handles the printable ASCII characters, not the
control characters, so I don't know if it would handle UTF-8.)

John Savard (jsavard<at>ecn<dot>ab<dot>ca)
http://www.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto.htm

######

From: jsavard@tenMAPSONeerf.edmonton.ab.ca (John Savard)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The Evils of ASCII
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 13:12:27 GMT
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On 29 Dec 1999 12:52:19 GMT, dski@ms17.hinet.net () wrote:

>Never having heard anything of the sort before, and wondering if this
>thesis is a remnant of a bygone age, I offer for your consideration:
>   http://www.cuenet.com/archive/wordstar/1999/99-12/msg00675.html

Although I can find some faults with ASCII, for example the fact that
0123456789ABCDEF is not a sequence of contiguous characters, the idea
that designing ASCII as a 7-bit code, instead of a 7-bit
representation of a 5-bit code, is somehow a failure or a waste of
computer resources strikes me as rather bizarre.

Doing that would waste enough character positions that giving ASCII
both lower case and a decent repertoire of punctuation symbols would
require 8 bits rather than 7.

(In any case, there _is_ "ASCII over AMTOR", so one can represent
ASCII by a 5-level code if one needs to.)

John Savard (teneerf <-)
http://www.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

######

From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The Evils of ASCII
Date: 30 Dec 1999 14:59:07 GMT
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In article <386b58d2.1722257@news.ecn.ab.ca>,
John Savard <jsavard@tenMAPSONeerf.edmonton.ab.ca> wrote:

>(In any case, there _is_ "ASCII over AMTOR", so one can represent
>ASCII by a 5-level code if one needs to.)

Damn it, now I'm thinking about UNICODE over UTF-8 over ASCII over AMTOR,
and it's your fault.

I've been trying to figure out how you might work with ASCII using a 5-bit
device (say, a Teletype) rather than just using it on a 5-bit channel.  It
would be pretty ugly, I can tell you that.

-- Derek

######

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From: Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The Evils of ASCII
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dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) writes:
> I've been trying to figure out how you might work with ASCII using a 5-bit
> device (say, a Teletype) rather than just using it on a 5-bit channel.  It
> would be pretty ugly, I can tell you that.

In my youth a friend asked me to write a driver for his model 28 Teletype
(an RO, if memory serves).  He was using a TLB computer, a 6502-based system
developed by Tommy L. Billings, running the Apex operating system.

I wrote a driver in 6502 assembly code that would buffer one line of text.
If the characters all mapped to 5-level directly, it would print the line
in the normal and obvious fashion.  Otherwise it would print overstrikes by
making two passes over the same line (since there wasn't a backspace).

This worked great for output; it never occurred to us to use the same scheme
for input, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

######

From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: The Evils of ASCII
Date: 6 Jan 2000 01:21:54 GMT
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In article <qh3dscm5b5.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
Eric Smith  <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com> wrote:
>dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) writes:

>> I've been trying to figure out how you might work with ASCII using a 5-bit
>> device (say, a Teletype) rather than just using it on a 5-bit channel.  It
>> would be pretty ugly, I can tell you that.
>
>In my youth a friend asked me to write a driver for his model 28 Teletype
>(an RO, if memory serves).  He was using a TLB computer, a 6502-based system
>developed by Tommy L. Billings, running the Apex operating system.
>
>I wrote a driver in 6502 assembly code that would buffer one line of text.
>If the characters all mapped to 5-level directly, it would print the line
>in the normal and obvious fashion.  Otherwise it would print overstrikes by
>making two passes over the same line (since there wasn't a backspace).

OK, that's more or less what I was thinking of.

I probably should have been less vague.  The ugly part arises if you want to
create translations for as many ASCII characters as possible.  For example,
there are four sets of brackets ( ) < > [ ] { } and a bunch of other
punctuation marks that don't exist in any of the 5-bit character sets.  (I'm
being vague because I don't have a reference on hand, so I don't know what
_does_ exist.)

>This worked great for output; it never occurred to us to use the same scheme
>for input, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

Again, I was setting high standards.  What if you want to input control
characters?  What about (gasp) lowercase?  You only have overstriking,
figures/letters, and maybe one or two punctuation characters to work with. 
(Isn't there an unused character?  That would be good.)  It would require
intense concentration.

-- Derek

######

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Subject: Re: The Evils of ASCII
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I wrote:
> This worked great for output; it never occurred to us to use the same scheme
> for input, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

dpeschel@u.washington.edu (Derek Peschel) writes:
> Again, I was setting high standards.  What if you want to input control
> characters?  What about (gasp) lowercase?  You only have overstriking,
> figures/letters, and maybe one or two punctuation characters to work with. 
> (Isn't there an unused character?  That would be good.)  It would require
> intense concentration.

I'd have written the input side if it would have been useful.  But on the
Teletype model 28 RO, input would have been way to slow to be practical.