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Date:         Fri, 4 Dec 92 13:58:38 BST
From: CHAA006@VAX.RHBNC.AC.UK
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Subject:      RE: accents
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Paul Taylor, in referring to Bernard Gaulle's message, cited:

 > Do we consider that we need to change a well known environment syntax for
 > an obsolate manner of inputing accented letters? In few years (i hope)
 > nobody will use the old Knuth manner for putting diacritics and everybody
 > will input (at least) 8bits chars and then we will discuss about the 32bits
 > notation...

and replied:

> I completely disagree.

> I accept that English-language cultural imperialism was the root cause of
> this problem, but SEVEN BIT ASCII is the standard, and will remain so for
> the forseeable future.  (Largely because of IBM's usual spanner-in-the-works
> approach to standards, and the use of EARN/BITNET networks, eg for this list)
> it's difficult enough to be sure of the existing full 96 characters in that.

But 8-bit ASCII is no longer the standard \stress {for the TeX world}.
Because of Knuth's 8-bit changes for TeX V3+, and because of the working
group which produced the Cork standard, we now have an 8-bit standard
for TeX.  For obvious reasons it cannot meet the needs of all nations
(it is already doubtful whether a 16-bit character set will meet such
needs), but it does meet the needs of the majority of European users.
As each character has an alternative (hex) representation, there is no reason
why EBCDIC and/or gateways need cause problems: by adopting the <superscript>
<superscript> <hex pair> convention, all 256 characters can be represented
in a form that is logically ('though not practically) immune to mapping
problems.  It is a sad fact of life that the very character needed
(default <superscript> = <caret/circumflex>) is itself one of the EBCDIC/
gateway problem characters.

None the less, for languages other than those dealt with by the Cork
standard, Paul is surely correct in saying that the old \'e mechanism
must still be invoked.

					Philip Taylor, RHBNC/