To: crough45 AT amc DOT de
Cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 11:20:25 -0700
Subject: Re: or symbol
Message-ID: <19970920.112140.8910.0.bshadwick@juno.com>
References: <97Sep20.134323gmt+0100 DOT 11650 AT internet01 DOT amc DOT de>
From: bshadwick AT juno DOT com (Ben N Shadwick)
Precedence: bulk

On Sat, 20 Sep 1997 12:47:59 +0100 Christopher Croughton
<crough45 AT amc DOT de> writes:
>Ben N Shadwick wrote:
>I didn't see the original post, but there are a lot of non-US/UK people
>on the list (several Germans, who I know use a different keyboard as
>standard because I work here and had difficulty getting a US one; I
>don't know what other keyboard layouts are commonly used but I know
>there are at least 6 'standard' layouts in Europe alone).
>
>(You don't want to use a German keyboard.  It swaps 'Y' and 'Z' so
>it's a 'QWERTZ' not a 'QWERTY' layout, and puts punctuation all over
>the place.  < and > aren't over , and . as God and IBM intended, they
>are on their own key (> is shifted <), and almost everything else is
>shifted as well.  I've seen a Swedish one, it was different but as 
>bad, the French apparently has yet another layout of letters...)

Yes, I've actually used some French programs on my computer, and some of
the keys on my keyboard (US) register as different ones to the program!

>There was nothing wrong with your posting the information, indeed -
>my quibble was with your implied assumption that the US/UK layout
>was 'the' layout.  Wishful thinking, I suspect - it would be nice
>if there was just one standard layout.  It would make the job of us
>international programmes so much easier...

You could buy a US/UK keyboard, but you'd probably have to go to a little
trouble to get it to work with some of your programs... =) At least most
European countries have basically the same alphabet; I can't imagine what
computers in Asian countries must be like, for example.

>> It's called that on IBM PC platforms as well, although people
sometimes
>> refer to it by the other names you mentioned, usually depending on the
>> context in which the character itself is used.
>
>True, MSDOS does have something it calls 'pipes', but I've never heard
>it called that by anyone without some Unix background.  The most common
>I've heard (in England) is 'bar', followed by 'or' if someone is talking
>about the program code.  It's quite possible that 'pipe' is more common
>in America, where a 'bar' is generally a drinking place (in England the 
>'pub' or "public house" is more often where programmers gather to 
>drink).

=) From what I've heard, pipes on MSDOS and Unix serve a similar
function, but their implementation is different.

>(If you really want a list of variant names for ASCII characters, the 
>Jargon File (formerly the Hackers' Dictionary) has dozens...)
>
>Chris C

I think I've seen that somewhere. Where can I go to take a look at it? =)

=====
Ben Shadwick, Sysop, Mars Base BBS, (360)882-0773, Vancouver, WA, USA