Sender: kentb AT vnd DOT tek DOT com
Message-ID: <334187E1.41C67EA6@vnd.tek.com>
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 1997 14:10:41 -0800
From: Kent Byerley <kentb AT vnd DOT tek DOT com>
Organization: Tektronix Inc.,  Beaverton, OR
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Matthias Paul <PAUL-MA AT reze-1 DOT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
CC: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: wish list 2.0
References: <2BFB7A95ED3 AT reze-1 DOT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
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Matthias Paul wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 01 Apr 1997, Kent Byerley asked:
> > Matthias Paul wrote:
> > > On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, Colin W. Glenn wrote:
> > > > OpenDOS should also support single-stepping the boot as well.
> ...
> > >   Using the undocumented YESCHAR= directive, you can select the
> > >   character you want to be asked for instead of <Y>, e.g. YESCHAR=J
> > >   would fix these problems for Germany.
> >
> > Does this mean that if your an in single step mode the YESCHAR=J
> > directive is found
> > that you will be asked (Y/N) and after that you will be asked (J/N)?
> >
> Yes Kent, that's it.  YESCHAR=O in France, YESCHAR=S in Spain and
> Italy, ...
> 
> (Of course, the YESCHAR= directive not only works in single-
> stepping... ;-)
> 
> As I said, currently, the YESCHAR= directive works for CONFIG.SYS
> only, not even for the Yes/No-determination interrupt, which still
> depends on the localized kernel variant, that is English for the
> current OpenDOS release.  However, all those external commands should
> also honore this interrupt, which they currently do not.
> 
> But we should enhance this over the whole system, introducing a new
> API to retrieve enhanced country specific information, including
> the YesChar. Some ideas concerning special chars:
> 
> In CONFIG.SYS:    In Batchjobs:   and also via a new API (very easy)
> 
> YESCHAR=Y         %YesChar%
> NOCHAR=N          %NoChar%
> DIRCHAR=D         %DirChar%      \ for File/Dir determination
> FILECHAR=F        %FileChar%     /
> ABORTCHAR=A       %AbortChar%    \
> RETRYCHAR=R       %RetryChar%    | for Abort/Retry/Ignore/Fail
> IGNORECHAR=I      %IgnoreChar%   |     questions
> FAILCHAR=F        %FailChar%     /
> 
> Doing so, we could reduce country specific problems, e.g. in
> multi-lingual batchjobs.  Imagine the following:
> 
> Under special circumstances MOVE asks if the destination is a <f>ile
> or <d>irectory.  In a normal batchjob, this is no problem at all, in
> an English environment just write, e.g.
> 
>  ECHO D | MOVE source destination
> 
> Executing this in Germany would do the opposite, since the German word
> for <F>ile is <D>atei, which matches perfectly with <D>irectory. ;-)
> There are more such scenarios... Other languages have very similar
> problems.
> 
>  ECHO %DirChar%D | MOVE source destination
> 
> would work ok, if %DirChar% was a system function, like all those
> other COMMAND.COM functions.
> 
This latter part sounds like a completely valid approach to
Internationalization after DOS
is up and running, but the point of my question was that no matter how
you setup your config.sys file that if you are in single step mode you
will need to use the English "Y/N" until the international specification
takes place.

It seems that what is really needed is a way to brand the boot file/s
with the internationalization characters before they read the config.sys
file.  This might be done
by registering all the needed characters in the boot program and having
one language type
character in the boot sector to specify the nationality.

--
Kent Byerley               |  We are born naked,
kentb AT vnd DOT tek DOT com          |  wet and hungry.
Tektronix, Beaverton, Or   |  Then things get worse.