Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
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From: gerth@watson.ibm.com (John Gerth)
Subject: Demise of the non-ASCII character set
Summary: Historical ironies of the inevitable?
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Message-ID: <1992Mar22.020216.4191@watson.ibm.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1992 02:02:16 GMT
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Although many of the arguments for the demise of APL character
set (actually if I read correctly - any non-ASCII character) do
seem forceful, I cannot help but be overcome by a sense of irony.

Here we are at the end of the twentieth century giving good
battle against the 'c' in the hardware (and 'C' in the software); 
anticipating vast increases in communication bandwith; thrilling
to the possibility of a million-fold increase in switching speed;
churning out ever more detailed icons for our GUI's; but what do
do we imagine for ourselves as both the desirable and forseeable future -
linear 7-bit text?

-- 
/John
