Back in the day after HP split into HP and HPE, a lot of HPE software products went to Micro Focus as Micro Focus merged with "HPE Software".

Here's the final blurb from 2017:
https://www.microfocus.com/about/press-room/article/2017/micro-focus-completes-merger-with-hpe-software/

I just read that Micro Focus is being acquired by Open Text:
https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/open-text-to-acquire-micro-focus-in-all-cash-us6-billion-deal/499781

Neil Rieck
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
http://neilrieck.net

I still wonder if there are any PDP-11 layered software sources still at
HP(E) somewhere. Officially much went to Mentec when things were sold
there, but Mentec's copies seems to have been lost. And also, Mentec
pretty much didn't any further releases of any of the layered software,
so if something were still around at HP(E), that would be pretty much up
to date.

What was/is the story with VSI? Did all the layered products also move
over, or did HP(E) keep some of it, and that's what's included here?

Johnny

On 2022-08-29 14:03, Neil Rieck wrote:
> Back in the day after HP split into HP and HPE, a lot of HPE software products went to Micro Focus as Micro Focus merged with "HPE Software".
>
> Here's the final blurb from 2017:
> https://www.microfocus.com/about/press-room/article/2017/micro-focus-completes-merger-with-hpe-software/
>
> I just read that Micro Focus is being acquired by Open Text:
> https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/open-text-to-acquire-micro-focus-in-all-cash-us6-billion-deal/499781
>
> Neil Rieck
> Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
> http://neilrieck.net

On 8/29/2022 8:21 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> What was/is the story with VSI? Did all the layered products also
> move over, or did HP(E) keep some of it, and that's what's included
> here?
As far as I know, we (VSI) got all the layered products that had been supported
by the VMS infrastructure at HPE.

Products like DEC/EDI, which were supported at the end by a non-engineering group, were
not transferred to VSI.

I'm largely responsible for all the non-compiler layered products at VSI.

--
-- Rob

Robert A. Brooks wrote :
> On 8/29/2022 8:21 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
>> What was/is the story with VSI? Did all the layered products also
>> move over, or did HP(E) keep some of it, and that's what's included
>> here?
> As far as I know, we (VSI) got all the layered products that had been
> supported
> by the VMS infrastructure at HPE.
>
> Products like DEC/EDI, which were supported at the end by a non-engineering
> group, were
> not transferred to VSI.
>
> I'm largely responsible for all the non-compiler layered products at VSI.

Ah, you'll do ACMS then ? How is it going ?

--
Marc Van Dyck

On 8/29/2022 8:55 AM, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
> Robert A. Brooks wrote :
>> On 8/29/2022 8:21 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>
>>> What was/is the story with VSI? Did all the layered products also
>>> move over, or did HP(E) keep some of it, and that's what's included
>>> here?
>>   As far as I know, we (VSI) got all the layered products that had been supported
>> by the VMS infrastructure at HPE.
>>
>> Products like DEC/EDI, which were supported at the end by a non-engineering group, were
>> not transferred to VSI.
>>
>> I'm largely responsible for all the non-compiler layered products at VSI.
>
> Ah, you'll do ACMS then ? How is it going ?

Well, we've released VSI ACMS for Alpha and IA64, and it's in use at various customer sites.

For X86_64, we need CDD and Rdb, which are used in the build of ACMS.

I will probably make an effort to build the non-Rdb-dependent parts of ACMS soon.

--
-- Rob

On 8/29/2022 9:31 AM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
> On 8/29/2022 8:55 AM, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
>> Robert A. Brooks wrote :
>>> On 8/29/2022 8:21 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>
>>>> What was/is the story with VSI? Did all the layered products also
>>>> move over, or did HP(E) keep some of it, and that's what's included
>>>> here?
>>> As far as I know, we (VSI) got all the layered products that had been
>>> supported
>>> by the VMS infrastructure at HPE.
>>>
>>> Products like DEC/EDI, which were supported at the end by a non-engineering
>>> group, were
>>> not transferred to VSI.
>>>
>>> I'm largely responsible for all the non-compiler layered products at VSI.
>>
>> Ah, you'll do ACMS then ? How is it going ?
>
> Well, we've released VSI ACMS for Alpha and IA64, and it's in use at various
> customer sites.
>
> For X86_64, we need CDD and Rdb, which are used in the build of ACMS.
>
> I will probably make an effort to build the non-Rdb-dependent parts of ACMS soon.
>

So, you'll apply for ISV status with Oracle, if they have such a program?

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 8/29/2022 10:51 AM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 8/29/2022 9:31 AM, Robert A. Brooks wrote:
>> For X86_64, we need CDD and Rdb, which are used in the build of ACMS.
>>
>> I will probably make an effort to build the non-Rdb-dependent parts of
>> ACMS soon.
>
> So, you'll apply for ISV status with Oracle, if they have such a program?

Oracle products usually are free for development even without
registering as ISV.

Arne

On 8/29/2022 8:03 AM, Neil Rieck wrote:
> Back in the day after HP split into HP and HPE, a lot of HPE software products went to Micro Focus as Micro Focus merged with "HPE Software".
>
> Here's the final blurb from 2017:
> https://www.microfocus.com/about/press-room/article/2017/micro-focus-completes-merger-with-hpe-software/
>
> I just read that Micro Focus is being acquired by Open Text:
> https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/open-text-to-acquire-micro-focus-in-all-cash-us6-billion-deal/499781

AFAIK HPE software did not include anything for VMS.

I saw the acquisition note too.

One company with a problematic product suite buying another
company with a problematic product suite.

OpenText has 3 ECM's in a market where customers prefer MS SharePoint.

Micro Focus has a bunch of non attractive stuff as well:
the Borland ALM stuff (customers prefer open source or cheap
cloud today), SUSE Linux (Redhat, Redhat clones, Ubuntu,
Debian etc. dominate that market), the infamous Autonomy
stuff from HPE software.

The only product with a good reputation must be MF Cobol.

Arne

Robert A. Brooks explained :
> On 8/29/2022 8:55 AM, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
>> Robert A. Brooks wrote :
>>> On 8/29/2022 8:21 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>
>>>> What was/is the story with VSI? Did all the layered products also
>>>> move over, or did HP(E) keep some of it, and that's what's included
>>>> here?
>>>   As far as I know, we (VSI) got all the layered products that had been
>>> supported
>>> by the VMS infrastructure at HPE.
>>>
>>> Products like DEC/EDI, which were supported at the end by a
>>> non-engineering group, were
>>> not transferred to VSI.
>>>
>>> I'm largely responsible for all the non-compiler layered products at VSI.
>>
>> Ah, you'll do ACMS then ? How is it going ?
> Well, we've released VSI ACMS for Alpha and IA64, and it's in use at
> various customer sites.
>
> For X86_64, we need CDD and Rdb, which are used in the build of ACMS.
>
> I will probably make an effort to build the non-Rdb-dependent parts of ACMS
> soon.

Wasn't a replacement for CDD, without the RDB dependency, discussed at
some point ? I vaguely remember something but not the details.

--
Marc Van Dyck

On Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 6:02:08 AM UTC-4, Marc Van Dyck wrote:
> Robert A. Brooks explained :

> >
> > For X86_64, we need CDD and Rdb, which are used in the build of ACMS.
> >
> > I will probably make an effort to build the non-Rdb-dependent parts of ACMS
> > soon.
> Wasn't a replacement for CDD, without the RDB dependency, discussed at
> some point ? I vaguely remember something but not the details.
>
> --
> Marc Van Dyck

The old CDD, without relational backend, while clunky, did just fine for Datatrieve, ACMS, TDMS, DECforms, Cobol, Basic,...
Bring it back!

Hein

On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:

> Wasn't a replacement for CDD, without the RDB dependency, discussed at
> some point ? I vaguely remember something but not the details.

Yes. That CDD work was discussed. Datatrieve did add enough support to
allow that product to function without Oracle CDD/Repository installed,
too.

As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago, and
Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window System
server support,

--
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
>
>> Wasn't a replacement for CDD, without the RDB dependency, discussed at
>> some point ? I vaguely remember something but not the details.
>
> Yes. That CDD work was discussed. Datatrieve did add enough support to
> allow that product to function without Oracle CDD/Repository installed, too.
>
> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago, and
> Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window System
> server support,
>
>

And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).

On 8/31/2022 2:07 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
>> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
>> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago,
>> and Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window
>> System server support,
>
> And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
> the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
> emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).

I always liked Reflection.

But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.

Arne

Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
> On 8/31/2022 2:07 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
>>> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
>>> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago, and
>>> Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window System
>>> server support,
>>
>> And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
>> the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
>> emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).
>
> I always liked Reflection.
>
> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>
> Arne
>
>

Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)

Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.

I had some Reflection files (could have been 2.7 or 7.2,
I do not remember the version) that could just be copied
to some Windows system without running some "installation"
program and just run.

Even Rocket Software sells some terminal emulation products.
https://www.rocketsoftware.com/product-categories/terminal-emulation

And, just FYI, Rocket software was co-founded by Johan Gedda, who
today is also the Chairman of, and main investor in, VSI.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanm4/

On 8/31/2022 6:04 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:

>>
>> I always liked Reflection.
>>
>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>>
>> Arne
>>
>>
>
> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)

Sorry; you both lose.

PowerTerm is the best.

--
-- Rob

On 8/31/2022 6:04 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>> On 8/31/2022 2:07 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
>>>> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
>>>> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago,
>>>> and Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window
>>>> System server support,
>>>
>>> And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
>>> the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
>>> emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).
>>
>> I always liked Reflection.
>>
>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>
> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)
>
> Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
> Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.

Putty doesn't handle soft fonts either.

But ...

Arne

On 8/31/2022 5:32 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 8/31/2022 2:07 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
>>> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
>>> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago, and
>>> Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window System
>>> server support,
>>
>> And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
>> the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
>> emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).
>
> I always liked Reflection.
>
> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>
> Arne
>
>

There is that "good enough" shit again ...

Whatever happened to "strive for perfection"?

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On 8/31/2022 7:18 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 8/31/2022 5:32 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 8/31/2022 2:07 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
>>>> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
>>>> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago, and
>>>> Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window System
>>>> server support,
>>>
>>> And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
>>> the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
>>> emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).
>>
>> I always liked Reflection.
>>
>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>
> There is that "good enough" shit again ...
>
> Whatever happened to "strive for perfection"?

If striving for perfection doesn't cost anything, then
it is fine.

But if it cost then one evaluate whether the perfectness
is worth the money.

Arne

On Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 10:04:31 AM UTC+12, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
> > On 8/31/2022 2:07 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> >> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
> >>> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
> >>> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago, and
> >>> Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X Window System
> >>> server support,
> >>
> >> And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
> >> the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
> >> emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).
> >
> > I always liked Reflection.
> >
> > But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
> >
> > Arne
> >
> >
> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)
>
> Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
> Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.
>
> I had some Reflection files (could have been 2.7 or 7.2,
> I do not remember the version) that could just be copied
> to some Windows system without running some "installation"
> program and just run.
>
> Even Rocket Software sells some terminal emulation products.
> https://www.rocketsoftware.com/product-categories/terminal-emulation
>
> And, just FYI, Rocket software was co-founded by Johan Gedda, who
> today is also the Chairman of, and main investor in, VSI.
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanm4/

For odd character sets and other things putty doesn't do or doesn't do well enough,
C-Kermit for Windows may be an option. This was known as Kermit 95 back when it
was a commercial product and it still retains most of its features. The new SSH
implementation is still very new though; the next beta in a fortnight or so should
improve that somewhat.

Supported character sets: https://kermitproject.org/k95manual/charsets.html

On 2022-09-01 01:15, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 8/31/2022 6:04 PM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>> On 8/31/2022 2:07 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 00:19, skrev Stephen Hoffman:
>>>>> On 2022-08-30 10:02:03 +0000, Marc Van Dyck said:
>>>>> As for Micro Focus, they had merged with Attachmate some years ago,
>>>>> and Attachmate had Reflection terminal emulator support and X
>>>>> Window System server support,
>>>>
>>>> And Attachmate got Reflection when they marged with WRQ. They had
>>>> the emulator "Extra!" since before, which happens to be the main
>>>> emulator at my customer (today run from Citrix servers).
>>>
>>> I always liked Reflection.
>>>
>>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>>
>> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)
>>
>> Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
>> Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.
>
> Putty doesn't handle soft fonts either.

putty is acceptable, I guess. But at least in one situation, it differs
from how a VT-terminal behaves, and the developer preferred to keep it
that way after I pointed it out. Several other incompatibilities I
pointed out were fixed, though. So not totally unreasonable, but I'm not
entirely happy when there are deviations.

Johnny

On 2022-08-31, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> wrote:
> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>
>> I always liked Reflection.
>>
>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>>
>
> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)
>
> Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
> Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.
>

But haven't we moved on from this in the same way as we have moved on
from requiring DEC keyboards instead of PC keyboards to access VMS
systems ?

Shouldn't VMS systems be generating code sets that are compatible
with how code systems work today, not how they worked 30+ years ago ?

How do the Nordic special characters get represented in the 7-bit
character sets anyway or do they use 8-bits for some of the characters ?

I can't think of any Swedish places with any special characters, but
how would the following places have been represented in the old days ?

Flåm
Bodø

In ISO-8859-1, the special characters in the above are encoded as 8-bit
characters (and are broken as expected when displayed using UTF-8 :-)).

What positions would the special characters above have occupied in the
old days ?

For the benefit of anyone whose terminal emulator messes up the above,
this is a dump/record of the file I created with those above examples:

Record number 1 (00000001), 5 (0005) bytes, RFA(0001,0000,0000)

6D E56C4609 .Flåm........... 000000

Record number 2 (00000002), 5 (0005) bytes, RFA(0001,0000,0008)

F8 646F4209 .Bodø........... 000000

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 2022-09-01 20:04, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-08-31, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> wrote:
>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>>
>>> I always liked Reflection.
>>>
>>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>>>
>>
>> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)
>>
>> Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
>> Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.
>>
>
> But haven't we moved on from this in the same way as we have moved on
> from requiring DEC keyboards instead of PC keyboards to access VMS
> systems ?
>
> Shouldn't VMS systems be generating code sets that are compatible
> with how code systems work today, not how they worked 30+ years ago ?
>
> How do the Nordic special characters get represented in the 7-bit
> character sets anyway or do they use 8-bits for some of the characters ?
>
> I can't think of any Swedish places with any special characters, but
> how would the following places have been represented in the old days ?
>
> Flåm
> Bodø
>
> In ISO-8859-1, the special characters in the above are encoded as 8-bit
> characters (and are broken as expected when displayed using UTF-8 :-)).
>
> What positions would the special characters above have occupied in the
> old days ?
>
> For the benefit of anyone whose terminal emulator messes up the above,
> this is a dump/record of the file I created with those above examples:
>
> Record number 1 (00000001), 5 (0005) bytes, RFA(0001,0000,0000)
>
> 6D E56C4609 .Flåm........... 000000
>
> Record number 2 (00000002), 5 (0005) bytes, RFA(0001,0000,0008)
>
> F8 646F4209 .Bodø........... 000000

What do VMS have to do with this? This might as well be very application
specific. And what people are talking about are the 7-bit national
character sets, which obviously cannot be ISO-8859-x since they are all
8-bit character sets.

In fact, what we're talking about (if we talk specifically about
Swedish) is ISO-646-SE, where the characters []\{}| are used for ÄÅÖäåö.

And if you happen to run an application that is using ISO-646-whatever,
then you'd better have a terminal that can display it properly as well.
All DEC VT terminals can.

Johnny

On 2022-09-01 18:04:31 +0000, Simon Clubley said:

> But haven't we moved on from this in the same way as we have moved on
> from requiring DEC keyboards instead of PC keyboards to access VMS
> systems ?
>
> Shouldn't VMS systems be generating code sets that are compatible with
> how code systems work today, not how they worked 30+ years ago ?

If you're maintaining retired-in-place apps into app oblivion or are
maintaining apps until staff retirement, platform changes—such as added
character encoding, or widening the available keyboard support—just
aren't necessary, and often aren't desirable.

If you're working on new app deployments or on wholly new apps, sure,
the existing implementation details and limits are somewhere between
difficult and annoying, and more effort.

If you're unwary enough to stray outside of DEC MCS / mostly ISO 8859-1
/ Latin-1 with your app.

Character encoding is endemic; in DCL, APIs, filenames including UTF-8
and sorting-related discussions, RFAs, FIDs, file sizes.

The fun awaiting here with increased storage sizes and storage
capacities and storage addressing and storage features and encodings is
~endless.

ODS-5 / EFS support has not yet landed in many apps, 64-bit storage
addressing, and I've had difficulty even finding whatever doc was made
available for the UTF-8 support that snuck out.

Descriptors—arguably an ancestral form of an object—presently lack any
support for language and character encoding storage.

This is also a completely self-solving problem, of course. Albeit slowly.

--
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

Den 2022-09-01 kl. 21:06, skrev Johnny Billquist:
> On 2022-09-01 20:04, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> On 2022-08-31, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> wrote:
>>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>>>
>>>> I always liked Reflection.
>>>>
>>>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)
>>>
>>> Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
>>> Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.
>>>
>>
>> But haven't we moved on from this in the same way as we have moved on
>> from requiring DEC keyboards instead of PC keyboards to access VMS
>> systems ?
>>
>> Shouldn't VMS systems be generating code sets that are compatible
>> with how code systems work today, not how they worked 30+ years ago ?
>>
>> How do the Nordic special characters get represented in the 7-bit
>> character sets anyway or do they use 8-bits for some of the characters ?

Just read up a little.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Replacement_Character_Set

>>
>> I can't think of any Swedish places with any special characters, but
>> how would the following places have been represented in the old days ?
>>
>>     Flåm
>>     Bodø
>>
>> In ISO-8859-1, the special characters in the above are encoded as 8-bit
>> characters (and are broken as expected when displayed using UTF-8 :-)).

Yes, in ISO-8859-1, these are in the upper half of the 8-bit set.
And in UTF8 they are dual byte characters, of course.

But that doesn't help those having a lot of applications
having hard-coded text output in 7-bit national char sets.

>>
>> What positions would the special characters above have occupied in the
>> old days ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Replacement_Character_Set

>>
>> For the benefit of anyone whose terminal emulator messes up the above,
>> this is a dump/record of the file I created with those above examples:
>>
>> Record number 1 (00000001), 5 (0005) bytes, RFA(0001,0000,0000)
>>
>>                           6D E56C4609 .Flåm........... 000000
>>
>> Record number 2 (00000002), 5 (0005) bytes, RFA(0001,0000,0008)
>>
>>                           F8 646F4209 .Bodø........... 000000
>

That is not created using 7-bit char sets. If you look up the codes
E5 and F8 you will find them in the ISO-8859-1 8-bit char set, not
in the 7-bit char-set.

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-1

> What do VMS have to do with this? This might as well be very application
> specific. And what people are talking about are the 7-bit national
> character sets, which obviously cannot be ISO-8859-x since they are all
> 8-bit character sets.
>
> In fact, what we're talking about (if we talk specifically about Swedish)
> is ISO-646-SE, where the characters []\{}| are used for ÄÅÖäåö.
>
> And if you happen to run an application that is using ISO-646-whatever,
> then you'd better have a terminal that can display it properly as well.
> All DEC VT terminals can.
>
>   Johnny

Jonny is of course completely right here.
Simon is lacking knowledge the Nordic ASCII 7-bit chat sets.

Extra (and Reflection) terminal emulators handles this just fine.
Putty does not, there is no 7-bit character sets at all there.

There was a time when having parity on any serial communication
was "standard", and that limitied you to 7-bit character sets.
The 8'th bit was the parity bit.

On 9/1/2022 2:04 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-08-31, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> wrote:
>> Den 2022-08-31 kl. 23:32, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>> I always liked Reflection.
>>>
>>> But the reality today is that putty is good enough for most.
>>
>> Sure. But Reflection was still "better"... :-)
>>
>> Putty lacks the 7-bit national character sets.
>> Both Reflection and Extra can handle those.
>
> But haven't we moved on from this in the same way as we have moved on
> from requiring DEC keyboards instead of PC keyboards to access VMS
> systems ?
>
> Shouldn't VMS systems be generating code sets that are compatible
> with how code systems work today, not how they worked 30+ years ago ?
>
> How do the Nordic special characters get represented in the 7-bit
> character sets anyway or do they use 8-bits for some of the characters ?
>
> I can't think of any Swedish places with any special characters, but
> how would the following places have been represented in the old days ?
>
> Flåm
> Bodø
>
> In ISO-8859-1, the special characters in the above are encoded as 8-bit
> characters (and are broken as expected when displayed using UTF-8 :-)).
>
> What positions would the special characters above have occupied in the
> old days ?

First the background info about what this is all about
------------------------------------------------------

ANSI ASCII ~ ISO-646 ~ ECMA-6 is a character set going back to
the mid 60's. It only define 0-127 so it can work with 7 bit
comm.

128 character was not enough to cover all western languages,
so there were actually multiple mappings defined:

ISO-646 for English
ISO-646-DK for Danish
ISO-646-SE for Swedish
etc.

The differences was related to only a few characters.

Most relevant for Danes and Swedes are:

0x5B 0x5C 0x5D 0x7B 0x7C 0x7D
ISO-646 [ \ ] { | }
ISO-646-DK Æ Ø Å æ ø å
ISO-646-SE Ä Ö Å ä ö å

(I hope those 8 byte characters goes through)

In DEC VT terminals these "national variants" became
known as NRCS (National Replacement Character Sets).

Then is this stuff obsolete?
----------------------------

With the arrival of 8 bit character sets in the form
of DECMCS ~ ISO-8859 ~ ECMA-94 (~ CP-125x) in the mid 80's then
those national variants became obsolete.

(which was a blessing for all programmers as the values
changed in the national variants are widely used in
programming languages !)

My personal experience is that the national variants
dropped out of mainstream IT during the 90's.

So an application using those national variants should
probably have been rewritten sometime in the mid 90's
to use ISO-8859 (and rewritten again late 00's
to use UTF-8).

But as we all know then applications does not always
get rewritten.

And this would not just be a code change but also
a data conversion.

So I am not surprised that there still exist VMS
applications using national variants of ASCII.

That is how the real world is.

Arne