Adam, Jim et alia:
It depends on your definition of "like"...
We must be very careful not to confuse the STRUCTURE of the code with the
CONTENT that it encodes. They are two very different concepts: Viz, ISO
8859, a structure of 256 values where values 128-255 are use to encode
multiple content: about 15 different character sets, this week... But you
must know which ISO 8859 version is the one in use in order to decode ISO
8859 and retreive the content accurately.
In terms of structure: Braille, technically, is a two dimensional code, with
binary values (texture presence/absence) in a well-defined limited square
grid of positions. Morse code is a time sequence code, with sequences of
binary values (on/off sequences) as described in my previous E-mail.
In terms of content: Standard international Morse IS like Braille in the
regard that they both are similar to ASCII in their primary character set...
It is fundamentally English-oriented. I wonder if there aren't international
braille codes? What do blind people do use for reading who speak Thai,
Japanese, Bengali, Hungarian, !Kung, Inuiktuit, or Portuguese?
My point is simple: Morse, Braille and ASCII are very different codes in
terms of structure... but have similar content. My guess is that 'similar
content analogy applies to many languages other than English. After all,
people all over the world have the same need to communicate, be in in Morse,
Braille, ISO 8859 or Unicode.
Unicode just avoids the parallelism of the other code structures such as
Morse, Braille and ISO 8859. And Unicode eliminates the content ambiguity of
code structures that are too small for the range of content they must
encode, like ISO 8859.
Clive
> -----Original Message-----
> From: G. Adam Stanislav [SMTP:adam@whizkidtech.net]
> Sent: Monday, September 20, 1999 5:47 PM
> To: Unicode List
> Cc: Unicode List
> Subject: Re: Morse
>
> At 11:19 20-09-1999 -0400, James E. Agenbroad wrote:
> >Isn't Morse code like Braille used for many different alphabets?
>
>
> From the various responses I have received, it appears so. I was not aware
> of that: I was under the impression it was an international code limited
> to
> the capital letters of Roman alphabet. But, it seems, my impression was
> incorrect.
>
> Adam
>
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