In article <tet4ng$hpm$1@news.misty.com>, Johnny Billquist
<bqt@softjar.se> writes:

> And then we have German, which collate À along with a, just to make the
> whole international world even more messed up. :-)
>
> > Hoping that my EDT-produced 8-bit characters make it through. :-)
>
> They did.

Yours didn't. :-(

I guess that the above is ä. Yes, ä and a are sometimes collated, but
more often ä is collated before or after a or ae.

On 9/2/2022 2:00 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2022-09-02, Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 9/2/2022 9:05 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> The idea that the same 7-bit character position can mean different
>>> things in adjacent countries (such as Norway and Sweden) is indeed a
>>> very alien idea to me and that would mean a company operating in both
>>> countries would have some serious data interchange issues.
>>
>> ISO-8859 has the same basic issue. Multiple meanings of same
>> code - not per country like for ISO-646 but per region.
>>
>
> That's a good point. OTOH, during all the time I have needed 8-bit
> characters, I have never had to switch away from ISO-8859-1 so far
> and from what I can tell, the several ISO-8859 variants I have just
> looked at (1/2/4/9/10) appear to have common characters before 0x80.

Yes - that is still good old ASCII.

Arne

On 9/2/2022 2:59 PM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <63120837$0$703$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>,
> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> On 9/2/2022 9:05 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2022-09-01, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> wrote:
>>>> Just read up a little.
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Replacement_Character_Set
>>
>>> Professionally, I've grown up with 8-bit character sets and then, later,
>>> UTF-8, so seeing this earlier standard looks really weird and alien to me.
>>
>>> The idea that the same 7-bit character position can mean different
>>> things in adjacent countries (such as Norway and Sweden) is indeed a
>>> very alien idea to me and that would mean a company operating in both
>>> countries would have some serious data interchange issues.
>>
>> ISO-8859 has the same basic issue. Multiple meanings of same
>> code - not per country like for ISO-646 but per region.
>>
>> One country could be using ISO-8859-1 (western europe) and
>> the neighbor country could be using ISO-8859-2 (eastern europe).
>
> True, but ISO-8859-15 covers most Latin-alphabet languages.

Strictly speaking ISO-8859-15 is still western Europe only.

It is basically the same as ISO-8859-1 with Euro sign
and a few other added.

The few other do include 4 eastern European letters, but it
is not a full replacement for ISO-8859-2.

Arne

On 2022-09-02 17:10, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 9/2/2022 10:57 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2022-09-02 16:45, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 9/2/2022 10:33 AM, John Dallman wrote:
>>>> In article <63120065$0$705$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, arne@vajhoej.dk
>>>> (Arne Vajhøj) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> What about CDC Display code?
>>>>>
>>>>> :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Hint: 6 bit! (well 6 or 6/12 bit)
>>>>
>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_display_code> That's ... well, it
>>>> looks insane to me, but I presume it was at least somewhat suited to
>>>> the
>>>> needs of the time. I don't believe the 63- and 64-character variations
>>>> can ever have been a good idea, though.
>>>
>>> It sort of made sense as the CDC system at the time operated on 60 bit
>>> entities (18 bit addresses of 60 bit words).
>>>
>>> 10 characters of 6 bits in a 60 bit word is manageable.
>>>
>>> 5-10 characters of 6/12 bits in a 60 bit word is somewhat manageable.
>>>
>>> 7.5 characters of 8 bit in a 60 bit word is not fun.
>>
>> Just waiting for someone to bring up the PDP-10 now. Bytes are of
>> variable
>> length in the hardware, but 5 7-bit bytes in one word was common, with
>> just one
>> wasted bit per word.
>> But again, 8-bit bytes would waste 4 bits per word...
>>
>>   Johnny
>
> Back in the early 1970s I took a course in Cobol at University.  Cobol
> on the PDP-10 used 6 bit characters.  6 characters per 36 bit word.
>
> There, you got your mention ...
>
> :-)

SIXBIT. Yay! That was popular at DEC for a while. Funny thing is that
SIXBIT was also used on PDP-8, but they choose to do it differently than
the PDP-10 for some reason. Just adding to the confusion.

(PDP-10 took the ASCII and subtracted 48 and then masked with 63, while
PDP-8 took the ASCII and masked it with 63, if I remember right.)

Johnny

On 2022-09-02 21:01, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <tet4ng$hpm$1@news.misty.com>, Johnny Billquist
> <bqt@softjar.se> writes:
>
>> And then we have German, which collate À along with a, just to make the
>> whole international world even more messed up. :-)
>>
>>> Hoping that my EDT-produced 8-bit characters make it through. :-)
>>
>> They did.
>
> Yours didn't. :-(

I think your news reader can't deal with UTF-8. My post's headers say:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Yours say:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15

So your newsreader probably tries to process everything it receives as
ISO-8859-15, and then my post turns out the way you see it.

> I guess that the above is ä. Yes, ä and a are sometimes collated, but
> more often ä is collated before or after a or ae.

Yeah. I was essentially saying that ä is considered a variant or
combination of a possibly followed by e in German, while in Swedish it
is a unique letter of its own, with its own place in the alphabet. No
relationship with a at all.

Johnny

On 2022-09-02 16:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2022-09-02 14:24, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 9/2/2022 4:54 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>>> Den 2022-09-02 kl. 02:09, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>>>> 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 !)
>>>>
>>>> I do not think I ever have had any issues with that in Cobol...
>>>
>>> Cobol, Fortran and VMS Basic seems to work fine with
>>> just ().
>>>
>>> But a lot of languages (C, C++, Pascal, Ada, Java, Python,
>>> PHP etc.) also use [] and/or {} in their syntax.
>>
>> Well, BASIC is really fond of $, which usually also gets replaced with
>> another character in these NRCS. ;-)
>>
>> I'll leave it at that.
>
> True.
>
> Typical:
>
> ¤

Yeah. I think the official name is "currency symbol" or something like
that. People just said "sol" (Swedish for "sun").
>
>> But I sortof half-fondly remember using RSTS/E in Sweden in the early
>> 80s. Accounts were PPNs, enclosed in brackets. Also used for the
>> directory. I had Ä120,114Å. :-)
>
> Did it allow <> instead of []?

Nope. VMS and RSX have that, but RSTS/E didn't/don't.

Johnny

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax <info-vax-bounces@rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of Johnny
> Billquist via Info-vax
> Sent: September-03-22 7:58 AM
> To: info-vax@rbnsn.com
> Cc: Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se>
> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Micro Focus to be acquired by Open Text
>
> On 2022-09-02 17:10, Dave Froble wrote:
> > On 9/2/2022 10:57 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> >> On 2022-09-02 16:45, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> >>> On 9/2/2022 10:33 AM, John Dallman wrote:
> >>>> In article <63120065$0$705$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>,
> >>>> arne@vajhoej.dk (Arne Vajhøj) wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> What about CDC Display code?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> :-)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hint: 6 bit! (well 6 or 6/12 bit)
> >>>>
> >>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_display_code> That's ... well,
> >>>> it looks insane to me, but I presume it was at least somewhat
> >>>> suited to the needs of the time. I don't believe the 63- and
> >>>> 64-character variations can ever have been a good idea, though.
> >>>
> >>> It sort of made sense as the CDC system at the time operated on 60
> >>> bit entities (18 bit addresses of 60 bit words).
> >>>
> >>> 10 characters of 6 bits in a 60 bit word is manageable.
> >>>
> >>> 5-10 characters of 6/12 bits in a 60 bit word is somewhat manageable.
> >>>
> >>> 7.5 characters of 8 bit in a 60 bit word is not fun.
> >>
> >> Just waiting for someone to bring up the PDP-10 now. Bytes are of
> >> variable length in the hardware, but 5 7-bit bytes in one word was
> >> common, with just one wasted bit per word.
> >> But again, 8-bit bytes would waste 4 bits per word...
> >>
> >> Johnny
> >
> > Back in the early 1970s I took a course in Cobol at University. Cobol
> > on the PDP-10 used 6 bit characters. 6 characters per 36 bit word.
> >
> > There, you got your mention ...
> >
> > :-)
>
> SIXBIT. Yay! That was popular at DEC for a while. Funny thing is that SIXBIT
> was also used on PDP-8, but they choose to do it differently than the PDP-10
> for some reason. Just adding to the confusion.
>
> (PDP-10 took the ASCII and subtracted 48 and then masked with 63, while
> PDP-8 took the ASCII and masked it with 63, if I remember right.)
>
> Johnny
>

Re: PDP8 .. a nice historical PDP8 and other early compute players perspective - I believe by Richard (Richie) Lary:
<http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-8/docs/WHAT-IS-A-PDP8>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp2NSbJ2H1k>

Regards,

Kerry Main
Kerry dot main at starkgaming dot com

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com

In article <tevcei$9eq$1@news.misty.com>, Johnny Billquist
<bqt@softjar.se> writes:

> I think your news reader can't deal with UTF-8. My post's headers say:
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> Yours say:
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15
>
> So your newsreader probably tries to process everything it receives as
> ISO-8859-15, and then my post turns out the way you see it.

Right. I would be happy to install a UTF newsreader on VMS. :-|

> Yeah. I was essentially saying that ä is considered a variant or
> combination of a possibly followed by e in German, while in Swedish it
> is a unique letter of its own, with its own place in the alphabet. No
> relationship with a at all.

That is true today. Historically, it was borrowed from German.

Interestingly, when 8-bit characters are not available, Germans usually
write "ae" for "ä" and Swedes write "a".

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kerry Main <kemain.nospam@gmail.com>
> Sent: September-03-22 10:15 AM
> To: 'comp.os.vms to email gateway' <info-vax@rbnsn.com>
> Subject: RE: [Info-vax] Micro Focus to be acquired by Open Text
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Info-vax <info-vax-bounces@rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of Johnny
> > Billquist via Info-vax
> > Sent: September-03-22 7:58 AM
> > To: info-vax@rbnsn.com
> > Cc: Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se>
> > Subject: Re: [Info-vax] Micro Focus to be acquired by Open Text
> >
> > On 2022-09-02 17:10, Dave Froble wrote:
> > > On 9/2/2022 10:57 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> > >> On 2022-09-02 16:45, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> > >>> On 9/2/2022 10:33 AM, John Dallman wrote:
> > >>>> In article <63120065$0$705$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>,
> > >>>> arne@vajhoej.dk (Arne Vajhøj) wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> What about CDC Display code?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> :-)
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Hint: 6 bit! (well 6 or 6/12 bit)
> > >>>>
> > >>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_display_code> That's ... well,
> > >>>> it looks insane to me, but I presume it was at least somewhat
> > >>>> suited to the needs of the time. I don't believe the 63- and
> > >>>> 64-character variations can ever have been a good idea, though.
> > >>>
> > >>> It sort of made sense as the CDC system at the time operated on 60
> > >>> bit entities (18 bit addresses of 60 bit words).
> > >>>
> > >>> 10 characters of 6 bits in a 60 bit word is manageable.
> > >>>
> > >>> 5-10 characters of 6/12 bits in a 60 bit word is somewhat manageable.
> > >>>
> > >>> 7.5 characters of 8 bit in a 60 bit word is not fun.
> > >>
> > >> Just waiting for someone to bring up the PDP-10 now. Bytes are of
> > >> variable length in the hardware, but 5 7-bit bytes in one word was
> > >> common, with just one wasted bit per word.
> > >> But again, 8-bit bytes would waste 4 bits per word...
> > >>
> > >> Johnny
> > >
> > > Back in the early 1970s I took a course in Cobol at University.
> > > Cobol on the PDP-10 used 6 bit characters. 6 characters per 36 bit word.
> > >
> > > There, you got your mention ...
> > >
> > > :-)
> >
> > SIXBIT. Yay! That was popular at DEC for a while. Funny thing is that
> > SIXBIT was also used on PDP-8, but they choose to do it differently
> > than the PDP-10 for some reason. Just adding to the confusion.
> >
> > (PDP-10 took the ASCII and subtracted 48 and then masked with 63,
> > while
> > PDP-8 took the ASCII and masked it with 63, if I remember right.)
> >
> > Johnny
> >
>
> Re: PDP8 .. a nice historical PDP8 and other early compute players
> perspective - I believe by Richard (Richie) Lary:
> <http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-
> 8/docs/WHAT-IS-A-PDP8>

Correction to above link:
<https://web.archive.org/web/20040825183612/http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-8/docs/WHAT-IS-A-PDP8>

Really good historical Richie Lary link on DEC, PDP8, VAX and VMS:

> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp2NSbJ2H1k>
>
> Regards,
>
> Kerry Main
> Kerry dot main at starkgaming dot com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
> www.avg.com

--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com

On 9/3/2022 7:12 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> On 2022-09-02 16:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> On 2022-09-02 14:24, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> On 9/2/2022 4:54 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>>>> Den 2022-09-02 kl. 02:09, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>>>>> 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 !)
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not think I ever have had any issues with that in Cobol...
>>>>
>>>> Cobol, Fortran and VMS Basic seems to work fine with
>>>> just ().
>>>>
>>>> But a lot of languages (C, C++, Pascal, Ada, Java, Python,
>>>> PHP etc.) also use [] and/or {} in their syntax.
>>>
>>> Well, BASIC is really fond of $, which usually also gets replaced
>>> with another character in these NRCS. ;-)
>>>
>>> I'll leave it at that.
>>
>> True.
>>
>> Typical:
>>
>> ¤
>
> Yeah. I think the official name is "currency symbol" or something like
> that. People just said "sol" (Swedish for "sun").

Thinking about it - the PHP programmers would also miss $.

:-)

>>> But I sortof half-fondly remember using RSTS/E in Sweden in the early
>>> 80s. Accounts were PPNs, enclosed in brackets. Also used for the
>>> directory. I had Ä120,114Å. :-)
>>
>> Did it allow <> instead of []?
>
> Nope. VMS and RSX have that, but RSTS/E didn't/don't.

I wonder whether the <> support was due to ISO-646-national.

Arne

Den 2022-09-03 kl. 19:24, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
> On 9/3/2022 7:12 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2022-09-02 16:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>> On 2022-09-02 14:24, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>> On 9/2/2022 4:54 AM, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>>>>>> Den 2022-09-02 kl. 02:09, skrev Arne Vajhøj:
>>>>>>> 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 !)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I do not think I ever have had any issues with that in Cobol...
>>>>>
>>>>> Cobol, Fortran and VMS Basic seems to work fine with
>>>>> just ().
>>>>>
>>>>> But a lot of languages (C, C++, Pascal, Ada, Java, Python,
>>>>> PHP etc.) also use [] and/or {} in their syntax.
>>>>
>>>> Well, BASIC is really fond of $, which usually also gets replaced with
>>>> another character in these NRCS. ;-)
>>>>
>>>> I'll leave it at that.
>>>
>>> True.
>>>
>>> Typical:
>>>
>>> ¤
>>
>> Yeah. I think the official name is "currency symbol" or something like
>> that. People just said "sol" (Swedish for "sun").
>
> Thinking about it - the PHP programmers would also miss $.
>
> :-)
>
>>>> But I sortof half-fondly remember using RSTS/E in Sweden in the early
>>>> 80s. Accounts were PPNs, enclosed in brackets. Also used for the
>>>> directory. I had Ä120,114Å. :-)
>>>
>>> Did it allow <> instead of []?
>>
>> Nope. VMS and RSX have that, but RSTS/E didn't/don't.
>
> I wonder whether the <> support was due to ISO-646-national.
>
> Arne
>

It might not have been the root cause, but on an Swedish keyboard
layout, typing <> is easier and faster then typing []...

I try to say to our programmers that it is fine to use <> for
their command line work, but to always use [] in command files
and when defining logical names.

I have seen some freeware utilities that fails on logicals
that uses <> in directory definitions.

On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> Well, BASIC is really fond of $, which usually also gets replaced with another
> character in these NRCS. ;-)
>
> I'll leave it at that.

Please don't. I'm curious, because I've not had the need to use "$" in Basic,
at least as far as I can remember, which these days might not be so far.

--
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 9/3/2022 7:32 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>
>> Well, BASIC is really fond of $, which usually also gets replaced with another
>> character in these NRCS. ;-)
>>
>> I'll leave it at that.
>
> Please don't. I'm curious, because I've not had the need to use "$" in Basic,
> at least as far as I can remember, which these days might not be so far.
>
>

Ok, forget that request. Somehow I totally forgot the "$" to denote a string
variable.

Basic can be rather fond of "%" also.

:-)

--
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 04/09/2022 00:36, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 9/3/2022 7:32 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>
>>> Well, BASIC is really fond of $, which usually also gets replaced
>>> with another
>>> character in these NRCS. ;-)
>>>
>>> I'll leave it at that.
>>
>> Please don't.  I'm curious, because I've not had the need to use "$"
>> in Basic,
>> at least as far as I can remember, which these days might not be so far.
>>
>>
>
> Ok, forget that request.  Somehow I totally forgot the "$" to denote a
> string variable.
>
> Basic can be rather fond of "%" also.
>
> :-)
>

I have never once used the $ in a string variable. Every program or
module I wrote in Basic (many thousands of them) started with:

OPTION TYPE = EXPLICIT

so all variables of whatever type were declared, and I never used those
suffixes

The $ is of course used in system and library calls

--
Chris

In article <tf0h5i$2r64k$1@dont-email.me>,
=?UTF-8?Q?Jan-Erik_S=c3=b6derholm?= <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com>
writes:

> It might not have been the root cause, but on an Swedish keyboard
> layout, typing <> is easier and faster then typing []...
>
> I try to say to our programmers that it is fine to use <> for
> their command line work, but to always use [] in command files
> and when defining logical names.

I followed that rule when I used VMS from a PC keyboard. On the other
hand, since <> is used deep within VMS (check the output of INSTALL
LIST), I suspect that it will always work.

> I have seen some freeware utilities that fails on logicals
> that uses <> in directory definitions.

Yes. Well written utilities handle such cases, of course. :-)

On 2022-09-03 19:24, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 9/3/2022 7:12 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>> On 2022-09-02 16:58, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>> But I sortof half-fondly remember using RSTS/E in Sweden in the
>>>> early 80s. Accounts were PPNs, enclosed in brackets. Also used for
>>>> the directory. I had Ä120,114Å. :-)
>>>
>>> Did it allow <> instead of []?
>>
>> Nope. VMS and RSX have that, but RSTS/E didn't/don't.
>
> I wonder whether the <> support was due to ISO-646-national.

Indirectly maybe. But as far as I can remember, the direct reason why
VMS and RSX supports it was because at some point DEC made a decision to
start using it as directory/uic delimiters in all their OSes. But then
the decision was reversed. I don't know/remember the details now. But
the point is that TOPS-20 fully changed to using <> (not sure about
Tops-10), but VMS and RSX didn't. But they added the ability to use it,
since TOPS-20 systems did do the change, so you ended up in a situation
where both were accepted.

RSTS/E was sortof more on its own. Hardly even had proper DECnet back
then, and wasn't really in the midst of such discussions.

But the reason that the for a while decided that they should use <>
might have been because of ISO-646. I have no idea.

Johnny

On 2022-09-04 02:44, Chris Townley wrote:
> On 04/09/2022 00:36, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 9/3/2022 7:32 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>> On 9/2/2022 10:48 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well, BASIC is really fond of $, which usually also gets replaced
>>>> with another
>>>> character in these NRCS. ;-)
>>>>
>>>> I'll leave it at that.
>>>
>>> Please don't.  I'm curious, because I've not had the need to use "$"
>>> in Basic,
>>> at least as far as I can remember, which these days might not be so far.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Ok, forget that request.  Somehow I totally forgot the "$" to denote a
>> string variable.
>>
>> Basic can be rather fond of "%" also.
>>
>> :-)
>>
>
> I have never once used the $ in a string variable. Every program or
> module I wrote in Basic (many thousands of them) started with:
>
> OPTION TYPE = EXPLICIT
>
> so all variables of whatever type were declared, and I never used those
> suffixes
>
> The $ is of course used in system and library calls

Even when you have fancy BASICs that have explicit variable
declarations, and ignoring system and library calls, you still have all
the string functions in BASIC which include $.

LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, STR$, SPACE$, STRING$, NUM$... The list goes on and
on...

Johnny

On 2022-09-03 15:34, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <tevcei$9eq$1@news.misty.com>, Johnny Billquist
> <bqt@softjar.se> writes:
>
>> I think your news reader can't deal with UTF-8. My post's headers say:
>>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>>
>> Yours say:
>>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15
>>
>> So your newsreader probably tries to process everything it receives as
>> ISO-8859-15, and then my post turns out the way you see it.
>
> Right. I would be happy to install a UTF newsreader on VMS. :-|

Ah. So that's where you're sitting. Yeah, then it all makes sense. :-)

>> Yeah. I was essentially saying that ä is considered a variant or
>> combination of a possibly followed by e in German, while in Swedish it
>> is a unique letter of its own, with its own place in the alphabet. No
>> relationship with a at all.
>
> That is true today. Historically, it was borrowed from German.

Who knows who borrowed from who, or if it was actually borrowed or just
grew out from the same sources. (Yes, I do find such implied claims of
ownership somewhat strange.)

> Interestingly, when 8-bit characters are not available, Germans usually
> write "ae" for "ä" and Swedes write "a".

True. And funny. I guess it's because since in Swedish, we never
consider ä to be just a different form of ae, it don't come naturally to
try to think, or write it as such. So the closest is to try and find
something that is visually close, and that leads to a.
Basically another effect of ä being a letter of its own.

johnny

On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 13:07 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> > The $ is of course used in system and library calls
>
> Even when you have fancy BASICs that have explicit variable
> declarations, and ignoring system and library calls, you still have
> all the string functions in BASIC which include $.
>
> LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, STR$, SPACE$, STRING$, NUM$... The list goes on
> and on...

Latest VB.Net still has these, sans the '$' symbols. Hey, at least it
pays the bills and supports all the emulators I use :-D
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 9/4/2022 1:29 PM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 13:07 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> The $ is of course used in system and library calls
>>
>> Even when you have fancy BASICs that have explicit variable
>> declarations, and ignoring system and library calls, you still have
>> all the string functions in BASIC which include $.
>>
>> LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, STR$, SPACE$, STRING$, NUM$... The list goes on
>> and on...
>
> Latest VB.Net still has these, sans the '$' symbols.

It seems to have with $ as well.

Module Program
Sub Main()
Dim s As String = "ABC"
Console.WriteLine(Mid(s, 2, 1))
Console.WriteLine(Mid$(s, 2, 1))
Console.WriteLine(s.Substring(1, 1))
Console.ReadKey()
End Sub
End Module

outputs:

B
B B

here.

Arne

On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 14:54 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 9/4/2022 1:29 PM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> > On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 13:07 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> > > > The $ is of course used in system and library calls
> > >
> > > Even when you have fancy BASICs that have explicit variable
> > > declarations, and ignoring system and library calls, you still
> > > have
> > > all the string functions in BASIC which include $.
> > >
> > > LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, STR$, SPACE$, STRING$, NUM$... The list goes
> > > on
> > > and on...
> >
> > Latest VB.Net still has these, sans the '$' symbols.
>
> It seems to have with $ as well.

I hadn't realised it still supported the $ functions, I thought they
had been left behind with the demise of VB6. I absolutely hated VB6.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On 9/4/2022 5:18 PM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
> On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 14:54 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 9/4/2022 1:29 PM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
>>> On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 13:07 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>>> The $ is of course used in system and library calls
>>>>
>>>> Even when you have fancy BASICs that have explicit variable
>>>> declarations, and ignoring system and library calls, you still
>>>> have
>>>> all the string functions in BASIC which include $.
>>>>
>>>> LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, STR$, SPACE$, STRING$, NUM$... The list goes
>>>> on
>>>> and on...
>>>
>>> Latest VB.Net still has these, sans the '$' symbols.
>>
>> It seems to have with $ as well.
>
> I hadn't realised it still supported the $ functions, I thought they
> had been left behind with the demise of VB6. I absolutely hated VB6.
>

With my experience in VAX Basic et;al, I was able to use VB6. I still haven't
figured out VB.net. Haven't tried too hard either.

--
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 9/4/2022 6:56 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 9/4/2022 5:18 PM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
>> On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 14:54 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 9/4/2022 1:29 PM, Single Stage to Orbit wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 2022-09-04 at 13:07 +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>>>> Even when you have fancy BASICs that have explicit variable
>>>>> declarations, and ignoring system and library calls, you still
>>>>> have
>>>>> all the string functions in BASIC which include $.
>>>>>
>>>>> LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, STR$, SPACE$, STRING$, NUM$... The list goes
>>>>> on
>>>>> and on...
>>>>
>>>> Latest VB.Net still has these, sans the '$' symbols.
>>>
>>> It seems to have with $ as well.
>>
>> I hadn't realised it still supported the $ functions, I thought they
>> had been left behind with the demise of VB6. I absolutely hated VB6.
>
> With my experience in VAX Basic et;al, I was able to use VB6.  I still
> haven't figured out VB.net.  Haven't tried too hard either.

The GUI part of VB6 is very different, but the language
itself is still very BASICish.

VB.NET language is way more different.

Some say that VB.NET is not Basic at all but C# with Basic keywords.

:-)

But the OOP, Generics and FP features make it very
far from traditional Basic.

Arne