On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 17:47:22 -0400, August Abolins -> Maurice Kinal wrote:

This one was perfectly readable in Aftershock, but the reply does not cooperate.

You would have to setup Aftershock to post/reply with CP866 as well (before you send off your message). As of right now you're trying to translate those characters to CP437, which won't work.

Regards,
Nick

... "Take my advice, I don't use it anyway."
--- Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:115.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderb
* Origin: _thePharcyde distribution system (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)

Hello Maurice,

On Sat, 16 Mar 2024 07:04:44 GMT, you wrote:

This time I only used 'trans' to translate unbounded English text and
then 'fold' and 'sed' to format the Russian text shown below. 'iconv'
was then deployed to convert utf8 Russian text to cp866. Looks like it works much better than 'trans' -width modifier.

�����, ��� ����� ������ ���������� �祭� ��筮� � �宩 �� �ࠢ�����
� ��襩. �� �ᥣ� ���� ��ᥬ줥��� ������� ���������, �ᥬ ��
��⭠��� �� ����⭠��� � ��������� ���, ��१���� �� ��� � ᢮��
�����, � ���� �� ����� ��� ������. ����. �� �������� �����...
�㯠���... ��������... ࠧ�������... ����⮢����� ��墠�뢠�饣�
������� �����...

Let's see how this one gets back to you. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Take my advice, I don't use it anyway.
--- slrn/pre1.0.4-9 (Linux)
* Origin: _thePharcyde distribution system (Wisconsin) (1:154/10)

Hi August,

On 2024-03-16 12:45:10, you wrote to Nicholas Boel:

Did not go over well with Aftershock.
HTTPS://ibb.co/rx9V6kx

^^^^^

Please use lowercase, so my terminal recognises it as an url and shows it as a clickable link! ;-)


Bye, Wilfred.

--- FMail-lnx64 2.3.0.0-B20240315
* Origin: FMail development HQ (2:280/464)

Hej August!

This one was perfectly readable in Aftershock, but the reply does
not cooperate.

Not surprising given that CP437 doesn't support CP866 encoding. The only encoding that properly supports differing languages is utf8. CP437 falls short of supporting anything other than the so-call higher ascii, which of course is bogus. All ascii are 7-bit characters and is well supported by most encodings in the range of 0x00 to 0x7f. Anything above that isn't ascii, higher or otherwise.

Het leven is goed,
Maurice

o- o- o- o-
/) /) /) /)
^^ ^^ ^^ ^^
... Fidonet 1080p - De vier pinguïns van de Apocalyps
--- GNU bash, version 5.2.26(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
* Origin: Little Mikey's EuroPoint @ (2:280/464.113)

Hej Nicholas!

Let's see how this one gets back to you. ;)

It looks perfect from this angle. I am still left wondering how accurate the original translation was.

Het leven is goed,
Maurice

o- o- -o o-
/) /) (\ /)
^^ ^^ ^^ ^^
... Fidonet 1080p - De vier pinguïns van de Apocalyps
--- GNU bash, version 5.2.26(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
* Origin: Little Mikey's EuroPoint @ (2:280/464.113)

Hello Wilfred!

Did not go over well with Aftershock.
HTTPS://ibb.co/rx9V6kx

^^^^^

Please use lowercase, so my terminal recognises it as an url and shows
it as a clickable link! ;-)

Maybe program your reader to accept https! :D No issues with
that here! ;)




--- OpenXP 5.0.58
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

Hello Nicholas!

Did not go over well with Aftershock.
HTTPS://ibb.co/rx9V6kx

From the looks of that screenshot, it doesn't look like it
quotes very well, either, going from 80 or more characters
wide to 50 characters. But I would imagine if there were
no initials before the quoted text, it would probably work
better.

It's not so bad. The message can also be viewed in landscape.

Either way, that's because you seem to have Aftershock
setup for CP437 charset. Those kind of UTF-8 characters do
not translate to CP437, at all.

Aftershock only has selectable CP437 and CP866. There is a
mode "same as device", but I don't know how that works.

Did Maurice's original message show up ok for you? Because
I don't think CP866 (at least those characters) translates
to CP437, either.

The original one was fine in Aftershock.

Can Aftershock use different charsets?

Dunno. Maybe "same as device" does that?

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.58
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

HTTPS://ibb.co/rx9V6kx

From the looks of that screenshot, it doesn't look like it
quotes very well, either, going from 80 or more characters
wide to 50 characters. But I would imagine if there were
no initials before the quoted text, it would probably work
better.

It's not so bad. The message can also be viewed in landscape.

Oops.. I forgot to add the screenshot:

https://ibb.co/GsGdnBr


--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.58
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

Hello Maurice Kinal!

Not surprising given that CP437 doesn't support CP866
encoding. The only encoding that properly supports
differing languages is utf8. CP437 falls short of
supporting anything other than the so-call higher ascii,
which of course is bogus. All ascii are 7-bit characters
and is well supported by most encodings in the range of
0x00 to 0x7f. Anything above that isn't ascii, higher or
otherwise.

So.. you're implying that utf8 should be baked into fidonet?

A vast majority of retro systems and software would still be
limited to the 7-bit chars and high-ascii, so.. what's the
urgency for utf8?

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.58
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

Hej August!

So.. you're implying that utf8 should be baked into fidonet?

It already is. Has been for over a decade now.

A vast majority of retro systems and software would still be
limited to the 7-bit chars and high-ascii,

Not a problem. utf8, like most of the 8-bit codepages, has ascii built into it. Without that you'd have a very good case for rejecting it in any ftsc document. As is your argument has no teeth.

so.. what's the urgency for utf8?

No urgency other than being first and best, which undoubtably I am ... or at least I used to be. I had it working before it became part of fts-5003.001.

Het leven is goed,
Maurice

o- -o o- o-
/) (\ /) /)
^^ ^^ ^^ ^^
... Fidonet 1080p - De vier pinguïns van de Apocalyps
--- GNU bash, version 5.2.26(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
* Origin: Little Mikey's EuroPoint @ (2:280/464.113)

Hello Maurice!

So.. you're implying that utf8 should be baked into fidonet?

It already is. Has been for over a decade now.

What I meant was should it be "the" standard in character
support in fidonet products?

There is nothing stopping anyone setting up an exclusive/pure
utf8-based ftn-based network.

so.. what's the urgency for utf8?

No urgency other than being first and best, which
undoubtably I am ... or at least I used to be. I had it
working before it became part of fts-5003.001.

I do believe that the ftsc-gods need to see sufficient evidence
of any new tech in use *before* it is given recognition with an
fts document ;) ..so, you *had* to have it working before it
became part of fts-5003.001. :D


--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.58
* Origin: (2:221/1.58)

Hey August!

What I meant was should it be "the" standard in character support
in fidonet products?

No but it definetly should be if one wishes to claim a completely capable product. I would wish no less for you and yours.

There is nothing stopping anyone setting up an exclusive/pure
utf8-based ftn-based network.

I suppose but it would probably be very lonely. Mind you I see that happening anyhow so there doesn't appear to be much to lose at this point in time.

you *had* to have it working before it became part of
fts-5003.001. :D

I was really bored at the time and it offered an interesting challenge. I was caught offguard when it became part of standards. I wasn't expecting that at the time but I was ready for it as it turned out.

Life is good,
Maurice

o- o- -o o- -o o- -o -o -o o- -o -o o- -o o- o- /) /) (\ /) (\ /) (\ (\ (\ /) (\ (\ /) (\ /) /) ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ... Ne læt þu no unlofod þæt þu swytele ongite þæt licwyrðe sie.
Do not leave unpraised anything you know well to be worthy.
--- GNU bash, version 5.2.26(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
* Origin: Little Mikey's Brain - Ladysmith BC, Canada (1:153/7001)

On 17 Mar 2024, Maurice Kinal said the following...

What I meant was should it be "the" standard in character support
in fidonet products?

No but it definetly should be if one wishes to claim a completely capable product. I would wish no less for you and yours.

it feels kind of lame that BBS systems still use codepages.

my term (ZOC) obviously is just translating CP437 to my UTF-8 font and it displays all the line drawing and pseudo graphic characters (imo) better than almost all the retro fonts ever did..

so i've been a long time IRC user and one day someone, or noone, basically decided IRC was going to be UTF-8 and if you couldn't read what was written
too bad.

... 私の墓石は DejaVu Sans Mono で刻まれます

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (1:120/616)

On 17 Mar 2024, Alexander Grotewohl said the following...

... 私の墓石は DejaVu Sans Mono で刻まれます

and it didn't work.. because of course it didn't.. heh

watashi no boseki wa DejaVu Sans Mono de kizama remasu
"My tombstone will be engraved with DejaVu Sans Mono"

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (1:120/616)

Hey Alexander!

it feels kind of lame that BBS systems still use codepages.

They need cp437 for ansi art. They shouldn't for ascii art but then again they don't know any better that cp437 characters from 0x80-0xff aren't really ascii and never were. This is what really made cp437 the codepage to avoid.

it displays all the line drawing and pseudo graphic characters
(imo) better than almost all the retro fonts ever did..

Agreed. For ansi art I take it a step further and restrict the output to a 80x24 terminal so that lines without terminators get properly wrapped. I used to use 'setterm' but now that I have tmux with the proper screen dimensions which allows me to use the rest of the real estate for other things. On a 4K monitor it makes a HUGE difference. I highly recommend tmux for a client based BBS surfing solution with a bad-ass attitude.

IRC was going to be UTF-8 and if you couldn't read what was
written too bad.

We can do better.

Life is good,
Maurice

o- -o o- o- o- -o o- -o -o o- o- o- -o o- -o o- /) (\ /) /) /) (\ /) (\ (\ /) /) /) (\ /) (\ /) ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ... Sorg bið swarost byrðen, slæp bið deaðe gelicost.
Sorrow is the heaviest burden, sleep is most like death.
--- GNU bash, version 5.2.26(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
* Origin: Little Mikey's Brain - Ladysmith BC, Canada (1:153/7001)