J,

> I occasionally use a very old text editor: it's the one that came with
> XTREE GOLD (and possibly earlier versions of Xtree) - I think
> it's called 1word, and is "(c) 1985-1993"!

My /very/ regulary-used (programming) editor is "Norton Editor", with a
copyright date of 1986. Yep, DOS era software for teh win. :-)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On 12/06/2023 11:54, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> In message <u66o9g$32qam$1@dont-email.me> at Mon, 12 Jun 2023 10:25:07,
> wasbit <wasbit@nowhere.invalid> writes
> []
>> E.g. I've used the following for years in Notepad
>>
>> Alt 7 = bullet point
>
> • Wow - that's useful! Thanks.
>
>> Alt 64 = @
>
> Are you using a keyboard layout that doesn't have an @ then? I know
> they're in different _places_ on UK/US keyboards (shift-2 in US,
> shift-the-key-two-to-the-right-of-L in UK), but I didn't know any of
> them didn't have an @ at all. (Or maybe you're using a laptop keyboard
> that's missing it? In these days of email, I'd have thought that a poor
> design!)
>
>> Alt 248 = degree symbol
>>
> ° One less keystroke than Alt-0176. Though I'll still have difficulty
> remembering them/it!

There are lots of downloadable ascii lists but they have too many
obscure characters & symbols to find what's needed quickly, so I keep
mine in a Notepad list which I add to as & when needed.
No idea why my list include Alt 64 @. Probably copied with something
else I needed at the time.

--
Regards
wasbit

On 12/06/2023 18:27, Mark Lloyd wrote:
> On 6/12/23 04:15, wasbit wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> I've always used
>> Alt 7 for a bullet point ie •
>
> How does that work in email sent to non-Windows systems?
>

No idea.
The OP was about Notepad but I guess it's fairly universal.

--
Regards
wasbit

Wasbit,

>>> I've always used
>>> Alt 7 for a bullet point ie .
>>
>> How does that work in email sent to non-Windows systems?
>
> No idea.

Rightly so, as it fully depends on the email-editor in question - possibly
including if its set to "plain text" or "HTML mode"

.... But if an ALT 7 gets included as-is (not likely) it *could* cause a
sound, as ASCII 7 is the BELL character. But as most display programs scrub
the output, the BELL character (and most other characters below 32) will
likely be removed.

> The OP was about Notepad but I guess it's fairly universal.

Not quite. I mentioned "(notepad or write)". And even the results for
just those two differ (as they use different codepages).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message <u69bje$3hrbt$1@dont-email.me> at Tue, 13 Jun 2023 10:06:53,
wasbit <wasbit@nowhere.invalid> writes
[]
>There are lots of downloadable ascii lists but they have too many
>obscure characters & symbols to find what's needed quickly, so I keep
>mine in a Notepad list which I add to as & when needed.

The asciicat utility (a sort of help file on steroids) is handy too.

It belatedly occurred to me that, if I was going to keep anything in
Notepad, I might as well just keep

×÷¼½¾?朲³μ?•
Šº?°…±þW™†ß© ¢
áâàäÁÂÀÄñ
éêèëÉÊÈËçÇ
ïîíìÏÍÌÎ
óôòöÓÒÔÖ
üúûùÜÚÛÙ

, and copy from it as needed, which I indeed did when using that laptop
that didn't have a numpad. (Note: the gap between © and ¢ is a tab
character: useful for copying into things where just pressing the tab
key would cause the cursor to move into the next field, as with for
example most web forms.) This was in practice quicker than any of the
other methods, such as allchars. (OK, if I kept chars.txt open in
Notepad, which I did.) I added to it occasionally, when I thought of a
character that was in the upper 128 that I actually wanted to use. (I
think I created the above block before I discovered what the AltGr key
does on my UK keyboard layout.)

>No idea why my list include Alt 64 @. Probably copied with something
>else I needed at the time.
>
Sounds likely.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes

In message <u69dpn$3i394$1@dont-email.me> at Tue, 13 Jun 2023 11:44:10,
R.Wieser <address@is.invalid> writes
>Wasbit,
>
>>>> I've always used
>>>> Alt 7 for a bullet point ie .
>>>
>>> How does that work in email sent to non-Windows systems?
>>
>> No idea.
>
>Rightly so, as it fully depends on the email-editor in question - possibly
>including if its set to "plain text" or "HTML mode"
>
>... But if an ALT 7 gets included as-is (not likely) it *could* cause a
>sound, as ASCII 7 is the BELL character. But as most display programs scrub
>the output, the BELL character (and most other characters below 32) will
>likely be removed.

With the exception of the 10/13 (or is it 13/10) pair, of course!

Ah, good old days! I remember back in UNIX days (around 1980), when you
could define your own prompt string (the ">" or similar character), some
of my colleagues defined a very fancy one including backspaces, just for
the sake of it (and you could indeed include BEL, though people soon
stopped doing that as it irritated anyone else in the room). It amused
me if I saw my friend with the fancy prompt forget and use a teletype
terminal.

Actually, I remember in DOS days you could define the prompt too -
something like $D$P showed the current drive and ">" ($P for "prompt") -
and, if you had something loaded whose name I forget, you could colour
different parts of it.
>
>> The OP was about Notepad but I guess it's fairly universal.
>
>Not quite. I mentioned "(notepad or write)". And even the results for
>just those two differ (as they use different codepages).
>
>Regards,
>Rudy Wieser
>
>
Would we be talking about the old Windows 3.1 Write? (I remember in '9x
- 95, anyway, not sure about later - invoking Write still called up
WordPad, though if you copied write.exe over from a 3.1 machine and
overrode the things that intercepted it, it would still work [though as
a 16 bit utility, e. g. only 8.3 filenames].)

Write was IMO much maligned: very limited by today's standards of
course, and contained some irritating bugs, but for the average PC user
in those days, more than adequate - more or less WYSIWYG, which was a
New Thing, and fine for the odd letter or even short document. (Can't
remember if it could include images.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes

J,

> Actually, I remember in DOS days you could define the prompt too -
> something like $D$P showed the current drive and ">" ($P for "prompt")

It was $P$G, with $P for the current path and $G for "larger than" angular
bracket - as was stored in/set by the PROMPT environment variable. And on
my XP machine it still is. <whohoo!>

Oh, I just, on a whim, tried "prompt /?". Didn't really think it would
work, but was pleasantly surprised.

> - and, if you had something loaded whose name I forget, you could colour
> different parts of it.

That would most likely have been ANSI.SYS. Allowed you to use VT100 (or
similar) sequences to move the cursor about and change fore- and background
color for text.

The only time I really used it was for visiting a BBS which used it to
present text-mode dialogs.

> some of my colleagues defined a very fancy one including backspaces, just
> for the sake of it (and you could indeed include BEL, though people soon
> stopped doing that as it irritated anyone else in the room). It amused me
> if I saw my friend with the fancy prompt forget and use a teletype
> terminal.

I /think/ I've still got a prompt definition stored somewhere which was
supposed to be a closed fist, but alternated with one with te middle finger
up. Never used it, but is was so rude that I just /had/ to save it. :-)

The only time I thought of changing it was on a "rescue" disk of kinds,
where I changed the prompt to indicate the special situation.

>> I mentioned "(notepad or write)".
> Would we be talking about the old Windows 3.1 Write?

Not really. It was just a reference to the two build-in editors.

To be honest, I've never had much of any use for feature-rich editors.
Plain text has always worked well for me.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message <u69q21$3jk3s$1@dont-email.me> at Tue, 13 Jun 2023 15:13:21,
R.Wieser <address@is.invalid> writes
[]
>It was $P$G, with $P for the current path and $G for "larger than" angular
>bracket - as was stored in/set by the PROMPT environment variable. And on
>my XP machine it still is. <whohoo!>
>
>Oh, I just, on a whim, tried "prompt /?". Didn't really think it would
>work, but was pleasantly surprised.

As was I when I tried it on this 7!
>
>> - and, if you had something loaded whose name I forget, you could colour
>> different parts of it.
>
>That would most likely have been ANSI.SYS. Allowed you to use VT100 (or
>similar) sequences to move the cursor about and change fore- and background
>color for text.

That's the guy.
>
>The only time I really used it was for visiting a BBS which used it to
>present text-mode dialogs.

Yes, I used some of those. Quite slick.
[]
>>> I mentioned "(notepad or write)".
>> Would we be talking about the old Windows 3.1 Write?
>
>Not really. It was just a reference to the two build-in editors.
>
>To be honest, I've never had much of any use for feature-rich editors.
>Plain text has always worked well for me.

I find the same for email and newsgroups - occasionally I use _this_,
and even more rarely *this* or /this/. I can see the use of richer text
in printed material, though, or some long documents (if only to be able
to include images, charts and the like [though if I want a table, I
_don't_ use a spreadsheet]).
>
>Regards,
>Rudy Wieser
>
We old dinosaurs must stick together. (I used to take the XP 'group too
[and one of the '9x ones too come to think of it], even though I'd moved
to 7 - but after a recent hiatus I haven't added them back.)
>
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

There should be a place on the ballot paper for 'None of the above', and if
enough people filled that in, the system might start to change. - Jeremy
Paxman in RT, 2014/1/25-31

J,

> I find the same for email and newsgroups - occasionally I use _this_, and
> even more rarely *this* or /this/.

Somewhere along the road I picked up the same.

> I can see the use of richer text in printed material, though, or some long
> documents

hmmm... I've got a number of long documents, and most all of them are, or
have been converted (by me) to plain text. As long as they are devidedd up
in paragraphs that are (normally, way) less than a window height I have no
problem with it.

> (if only to be able to include images, charts and the like

I've saved numerous webpages about different (programming) subjects, but
always pretty-much stripped them down to the bone, with only /some/ italic
and bold remaining. And the images and HTML tables elements* ofcourse,
which is pretty-much the only reason why I save in HTML.

* which is marked "obsolete", but are /way/ to easy to use to just drop them
(in favour of a jumble of DIV's and CSS)

> [though if I want a table, I _don't_ use a spreadsheet]).

A spreadsheet is nice when you need to do calculations on rows and columns.
As such I never had a use for them.

> We old dinosaurs must stick together.

I'm not old, the rest of the world just keeps getting younger. :-)

But yes. How many of the teenagers or even 20...30 year olds have ever seen
the commandline interface or know what its for ?

> (I used to take the XP 'group too [and one of the '9x ones too come to
> think of it], even though I'd moved to 7 - but after a recent hiatus I
> haven't added them back.)

At some point I dropped the w98 newsgroup, but still am "subscribed" to the
XP one. Even if its pretty dead nowerdays, its the OS I'm currently using.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message <u6aces$3m5f5$1@dont-email.me> at Tue, 13 Jun 2023 20:27:26,
R.Wieser <address@is.invalid> writes
>J,
>
>> I find the same for email and newsgroups - occasionally I use _this_, and
>> even more rarely *this* or /this/.
>
>Somewhere along the road I picked up the same.

Some systems even convert those. (Strangely, the comment function in
YouTube converts _this_ into italics, which is fine as I tend to use it
where I'd use italics. [Though you have to make sure it has a space
around it - a comma after, like _this_, breaks it.])
>
>> I can see the use of richer text in printed material, though, or some long
>> documents
>
>hmmm... I've got a number of long documents, and most all of them are, or
>have been converted (by me) to plain text. As long as they are devidedd up
>in paragraphs that are (normally, way) less than a window height I have no
>problem with it.

I've no objection. Sometimes it does help - putting the titles of things
in italics, for example, or underlining for emphasis - and bold (or
monospaced font) for keywords.
>
>> (if only to be able to include images, charts and the like
>
>I've saved numerous webpages about different (programming) subjects, but
>always pretty-much stripped them down to the bone, with only /some/ italic
>and bold remaining. And the images and HTML tables elements* ofcourse,
>which is pretty-much the only reason why I save in HTML.
>
>* which is marked "obsolete", but are /way/ to easy to use to just drop them
>(in favour of a jumble of DIV's and CSS)

Oh, autogenerated HTML is horrible. I find the <CENTER> tag (even if it
does have the US spelling!) _far_ more intuitive and easy than whatever
the <DIV> equivalent is.
>
>> [though if I want a table, I _don't_ use a spreadsheet]).
>
>A spreadsheet is nice when you need to do calculations on rows and columns.
>As such I never had a use for them.

Yes, that's what they're good at. I have my accounts in one. What I was
referring to is the habit many folk have of, when they want a grid or
table, thinking they have to include a spreadsheet. The table facilities
in my WP of choice I find much easier - and more versatile - than using
a bit of a spreadsheet. (It's not _just_ familiarity: I know the
spreadsheet part too.) As you say, spreadsheets are for when you want to
do sums on the contents - or, I will concede, sorts. But not if you
don't.
>
>> We old dinosaurs must stick together.
>
>I'm not old, the rest of the world just keeps getting younger. :-)

(-:
>
>But yes. How many of the teenagers or even 20...30 year olds have ever seen
>the commandline interface or know what its for ?

I knew I was old - and this was a decade or three ago! - when speaking
to a fairly-newly-qualified computing graduate, and it emerged he'd
_never done any assembler_. (And I didn't see anything that _wrong_ with
that - the field is big enough that he'll have no difficulty finding
employment; it just _startled_ me somewhat.)
>
>> (I used to take the XP 'group too [and one of the '9x ones too come to
>> think of it], even though I'd moved to 7 - but after a recent hiatus I
>> haven't added them back.)
>
>At some point I dropped the w98 newsgroup, but still am "subscribed" to the
>XP one. Even if its pretty dead nowerdays, its the OS I'm currently using.
>
>Regards,
>Rudy Wieser
>
>
I'm using 7 - 32 bit, as this news/mail client (Turnpike) won't work
under 64-bit. (It did right up to the pre-release version of 7-64, but
not the final; they broke something.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Radio 4 is one of the reasons being British is good. It's not a subset of
Britain - it's almost as if Britain is a subset of Radio 4. - Stephen Fry, in
Radio Times, 7-13 June, 2003.

On Tue, 13 Jun 2023 23:34:30 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk>
wrote:

>In message <u6aces$3m5f5$1@dont-email.me> at Tue, 13 Jun 2023 20:27:26,
>R.Wieser <address@is.invalid> writes
>>
>>A spreadsheet is nice when you need to do calculations on rows and columns.
>>As such I never had a use for them.
>
>Yes, that's what they're good at. I have my accounts in one. What I was
>referring to is the habit many folk have of, when they want a grid or
>table, thinking they have to include a spreadsheet. The table facilities
>in my WP of choice I find much easier - and more versatile - than using
>a bit of a spreadsheet. (It's not _just_ familiarity: I know the
>spreadsheet part too.) As you say, spreadsheets are for when you want to
>do sums on the contents - or, I will concede, sorts. But not if you
>don't.

Excel, with its built-in VBA programming environment, is also the best
text editor I've ever seen. All text transformations can be done
programmatically, with no manual edits at all, and each revision can be
nondestructive since you can just keep stepping one column to the right
to place the results. Unchanged lines are simply copied over. I'm not
aware of another tool that would have been more appropriate for the
task.

J,

> What I was referring to is the habit many folk have of, when they want a
> grid or table, thinking they have to include a spreadsheet.

Ah, in a "word processor". That shows you how little I use them. I was
not even aware you could do that. :-)

But I guess its the "one tool for everything" approach. Why learning about
simpler, lighter tools when the one you have, even though /way/ to heavy,
can be used for everything ?

> I knew I was old - and this was a decade or three ago! - when speaking to
> a fairly-newly-qualified computing graduate, and it emerged he'd _never
> done any assembler_. (And I didn't see anything that _wrong_ with that -
> the field is big enough that he'll have no difficulty finding employment;
> it just _startled_ me somewhat.)

30 years ago ? I would have thought that Assembly was much more used then.

As for "no problem" ? I consider it is. I've seen fantastic constructs
in high(er)-level languages which could be solved by a less than a handfull
Assembly instructions.

Once I saw someone isolating a bit in a value by taking the power of the bit
index, divide the value by that, floor it and than figure out of the value
was even or odd (bonus if they converted the value to a binary string and
than did a "right$()" to grab the lowest bit).

The equivalent in Assembly is a single command (and look at the "carry"
flag).

>> (I'm) still am "subscribed" to the XP one. Even if its pretty dead
>> nowerdays, its the OS I'm currently using.
....
> I'm using 7 - 32 bit, as this news/mail client (Turnpike) won't work under
> 64-bit. (It did right up to the pre-release version of 7-64, but not the
> final; they broke something.)

Although I might go and use Win 7 in the future, I've got no reason to use
later versions. Especially not as I like to be master of my computer,
instead of just a lowly user (with MS turning the dials whenever they
please).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message <u6bo03$3us2u$1@dont-email.me> at Wed, 14 Jun 2023 08:49:56,
R.Wieser <address@is.invalid> writes
>J,
>
>> What I was referring to is the habit many folk have of, when they want a
>> grid or table, thinking they have to include a spreadsheet.
>
>Ah, in a "word processor". That shows you how little I use them. I was
>not even aware you could do that. :-)

I think you said you used tables in HTML. I have done that, but it _is_
rather hard work, especially if you have some merged cells. (I'm talking
hand-coding, not autogenerated with a tool.)
>
>But I guess its the "one tool for everything" approach. Why learning about
>simpler, lighter tools when the one you have, even though /way/ to heavy,
>can be used for everything ?

Indeed.
>
>> I knew I was old - and this was a decade or three ago! - when speaking to
>> a fairly-newly-qualified computing graduate, and it emerged he'd _never
>> done any assembler_. (And I didn't see anything that _wrong_ with that -
>> the field is big enough that he'll have no difficulty finding employment;
>> it just _startled_ me somewhat.)
>
>30 years ago ? I would have thought that Assembly was much more used then.

I think it was before 2000, so maybe not quite that far back.
>
>As for "no problem" ? I consider it is. I've seen fantastic constructs
>in high(er)-level languages which could be solved by a less than a handfull
>Assembly instructions.

I totally agree. However, you've got to consider how much the work will
be _used_. With advances in processor power and storage cheapness, the
expense of programmer time - especially specialist, which I suspect
assembler is now - probably doesn't justify its use, if the resultant
code isn't going to be used that much, or even if it is but will still
be over in a flash. As an engineer it really pains me to say that, but I
can understand it. It's sledgehammer-to-crack-a-walnut - but we have the
sledgehammer handy, and finding out where there is a nutcracker shop,
and then sending someone to do the buying, all has to be costed. All
very depressing.
>
>Once I saw someone isolating a bit in a value by taking the power of the bit
>index, divide the value by that, floor it and than figure out of the value
>was even or odd (bonus if they converted the value to a binary string and
>than did a "right$()" to grab the lowest bit).
>
>The equivalent in Assembly is a single command (and look at the "carry"
>flag).

Something like AND #$08 (if it's bit 3 you're after), then a
jump-on-whether-zero.

(The example I remember - though the person describing it knew, and said
they thought it was probably the most inefficient use of resources - was
the simulation of a shift register in BASIC, interpreted on a
mainframe.)
>
>>> (I'm) still am "subscribed" to the XP one. Even if its pretty dead
>>> nowerdays, its the OS I'm currently using.
>...
>> I'm using 7 - 32 bit, as this news/mail client (Turnpike) won't work under
>> 64-bit. (It did right up to the pre-release version of 7-64, but not the
>> final; they broke something.)
>
>Although I might go and use Win 7 in the future, I've got no reason to use
>later versions. Especially not as I like to be master of my computer,
>instead of just a lowly user (with MS turning the dials whenever they
>please).

I had much the same reaction - and I think 7 now is more or less where
XP was not that long ago (and '9x before that). One might guess that 10
might soon be considered the same way, though I see a fundamental shift
between 7 and 10 (the - for other than very hacky users, anyway -
auto-"up"date-with-no-choice philosophy). But I suppose there might come
a point when 10 is "stable" (i. e. dead, as far as MS are concerned).

I'll be sticking with 7-32 for the foreseeable, though, and _might_ have
stayed with XP if I hadn't killed my XP machine.

I can't see - or envision! - anything I could _want_ that would make me
"up"grade; I can do everything I want now. The only thing I can imagine
is web pages stopping working with the browsers that will work under 7 -
and even then, I can imagine getting a cheap "throwaway" (i. e. expected
to last 3 years or less) machine for online use, continuing with this
one otherwise.
>
>Regards,
>Rudy Wieser
>
>
John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

My movies rise below vulgarity. - Mel Brooks, quoted by Barry Norman in RT
2016/11/26-12/2