Date: Sun, 20 Nov 94 01:01:59 GMT From: uunet!farance.com!frank (Frank Farance) Message-Id: <9411200101.AA11855@farance.com> To: uunet!uunet!osf.org!x3j11 Subject: Re: Do you want 7-bit ASCII withdrawn as a standard? > Date: Fri, 18 Nov 94 13:29:57 EST > From: uunet!aussie.COM!rex (Rex Jaeschke) > Subject: Do you want 7-bit ASCII withdrawn as a standard? > To: uunet!osf.org!x3j11 > > FYI: > > Date: 18 Nov 1994 11:56:35 -0500 > From: Kate McMillan > Subject: Criteria for Stds Withdrawal > To: OMC members > Cc: Chairs , > > As requested at the OMC meeting last week, I am forwarding to you Ed > Hart's comments regarding possible criteria for assessing whether an > old standard should remain on the books or be withdrawn. First things first. The quality ``old'' does not necesarily equate to ``bad'' or ``non-use''. I'm very pleased that the NEMA standard allows vendors to manufacture plugs and sockets for 110/115/120 volt outlets. Old technology, but without standard there to conform to (or measure conformance), the size, shape, and/or orientation could change. Right now, your 3-prong grounded outlet is also a 2-prong polarized outlet (check you television plug: one blade is probably wider than the other), and a 2-prong non- polarized output. Keep that NEMA standard around so that my assumptions about voltage, current, and grounding interchange remain the same for all my electric interchange devices the need to interoperate (read: my house doesn't burn down). I don't believe that ASCII will be safe, sound, and secure without a standard. While ASCII is widely successful and common across all systems that support it, it is only because we have a standard. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, there was much divergence. I seem to remember (I could be wrong), but in 1972-vintage vendor manuals, the "{", "|", "}", and "~" characters were still not standardized. In fact, "~" could have been treated as some escape character, which it was on Hazeltine terminals (send a "~" followed be the remainder of the sequence). To see this, if you're on a UNIX system look at the terminfo entry. The command $ TERM=h1500 infocmp -L should work, or look at the "/etc/termcap" entry (in older UNIX systems). I think ASCII 74 or 77 (I'm not sure) was the version that clarified the use of "~". Also, during this period, there were several variants of Teletype codes ("^" is an up-arrow and "_" is a left-arrow -- see Smalltalk). If the standard were withdrawn, it would not surprise me to see vendors with a large market share (e.g., IBM or Microsoft) attempt to introduce their own meanings, e.g., an IBM EBCDIC-influenced meaning of ASCII control characters or a Microsoft version of special printing characters in the control character region. Some vendors might even believe they could reassign meaning to CTRL-S (XOFF) or CTRL-Q (XON) -- a communication network nightmare. Here's some other problems if X3.4 were withdrawn: 1. There would be no US national character set. In ISO 646, subclause 6.2.1: The responsibility for defining national versions lies with the national standardization bodies. These bodies shall exercise the options available and make the required selection (see Annex A). So who would define ASCII if X3 doesn't? ISO 646 are ISO 8859-1 are not replacements for ASCII. Surely there's a need for ASCII, so some other standards body would define ASCII: - ANSI T1 -- telecommunications - ANSI X4 -- financial - ANSI X9 -- banking - ANSI X12 -- electronic data interchange - ANSI Z39 -- library and cataloging - IEEE - IEEE POSIX These organizations can all claim good reason why ASCII is important to them. Naturally, it would be a free-for-all because ASCII is important to just about everyone. 2. If some other organization took over ASCII, either they'd keep it the same (problem: a major waste of people's efforts to put a stamp on something that shouldn't have been dropped) or they will change it (problem: major incompatibility problems). 3. ASCII is the basis for X3.41 (non-7-bit encoding and multibyte encoding), X3.64 (terminal control characters, also known as ANSI terminals of which ``VT100 compatibility'' is a subset), X3.110 (videotext and teletext, also known as NAPLPS), and about 22 other X3 and X4 standards and many other informal standards (e.g., Hayes modem AT command set). 4. ASCII has additional infomation in its appendixes which is helpful for understanding some implementation and conformance issues, e.g., ``Interoperation of "LF" and "NL" ASCII equipment'' (interest to POSIX for terminal settings), ``Use of ASCII with Other Code Sets'' (interest to implementors of multibyte systems). This information does not exist in ISO 646 or ISO 8859-1. > Comments on his proposal are welcome. > ------------- > [Ed's message continues....] > > .....Also, I would like to see a section [in the X3/SD-2 or in the X3/SD-9] > that describes the status of standards to provide guidelines to decide > when a standard should be removed from maintenance and withdrawn. > I see adopted standards in several states: > > Approved Standards > > 1. active: standards community is working to improve the standard > because additions or updates are anticipated > > 2. maintenance: standard is stable, technology is stable, products are > being produced according to the standard, development of new > products that use the standard may still be (but need not be) > occurring, standard is widely known and referenced, products are > being used by a small but still significant community, I believe ASCII is in this state. > 3. obsolete: standard is stable, technology is obsolete, other > technology may be used to fulfill the original purpose of the > standard, development is not going into new products that use > the standard, either no products are being manufactured or the > production level is minimal for products that use the standard, > products are being used by a very small community. > > At our last X3L2 meeting, I had proposed revising 7-bit ASCII > (X3.4-1987). X3L2 decided not to revise it and people proposed that it > be withdrawn at the next 5-year vote. If X3 would provide some > clarification of this in SD-2, it would help X3L2 make better decisions. If such a useful standard is to be withdrawn, the X3L2 people must have good reason for this. At first glance, the X3L2 vote doesn't seem to make sense. It would be helpful to X3J11 and other interested parties to understand why the X3L2 committee recommends withdrawing the standard. BTW, Rex are you collecting X3J11's responses or should we copy the X3L2 Chair also? -FF --------------------------------------------------------------- Frank Farance, Farance Inc. ANSI X3J11.1/DPCE Chair E-mail: frank@farance.com OR UUCP: uunet!farance!frank Telephone: +1 212 486 4700 FAX: +1 212 759 1605 Rex ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- +1 703 860-0091 | Rex Jaeschke | C and C++ Seminars rex@aussie.com | 2051 Swans Neck Way | and Consulting | Reston, Virginia 22091, USA | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chair of the ANSI C committee X3J11 (which now incorporates X3J11.1) and member of the US delegation to the ISO C committee SC22/WG14. C/C++ editor for DEC PROFESSIONAL magazine. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------