Euro on old computers

From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke_at_mch20.sbs.de>
Date: Tue Feb 2 12:21:50 1999

> > BTW: this E symbol is one of the 4 most stupid ideas around
> > the euro - a typical pice of shit like most ideas developed
> > by politicians. Don't get me wrong, the Euro is a good idea,
> > but they tried to make it as stupid as possible.

> The cynic in me wonders whether the funny-looking E isn't something
> pushed either before or after the political accomplishment by computer
> companies wanting to churn the installed base. I mean, Y2K has a
> definite sell-by date. So does this but I think it's another couple
> years out, right?

No, the other way - some Eurobuerocrats thought it would be
cool to have a symbol like $ or # (pound) and added the
definition (more like a corporate ID thing) and the politicians
didn't think (do they ever ?). Eventualy I think the buerocrats
just did what they ever do - spend money for nothing and keep
their chairs warm.

Serious, AFAIK the E symbol was only ment to be an advertising
signet, but they converted the 'niche to have' gag to a 'must have'
official symbol.

Anyway, typical 7th heaven living politicans - at a time where
no european nation (maybe exept the Brits) any longer uses a
national symbol (even the italian converted their pound like L
to Lit.) they reinvent such a backward thing (Maybe they felt
that they need it acording to USD and YEN).

> ObCC: so what did you UKans do to get your funny-looking L on
> computers, terminals, and printers imported from ASCII-speaking
> countries?

There is a standardized GB-ASCII where the pond symbol is
on # (X'23') - and back in the 7 Bit area most printers
(and terminals) offered dip switches to select the different
national ASCII versions (I don't know how many there are, but
most printers offered at least US, French, German, GB, Danish,
Swedish, Italian and Spanish - some, especialy when manufactured
in JP also Japaneese). Especialy the European variants are a
good example how 7 versions can be made to get the maximum
confusion - even where they inserted the same character, they
used different characterpositions. For example: Italian è is
on X'7D', while the French è is on X'7B (and the French use
X'7D' for é) or the Swedish Ü is on X'5E' while the German is
at X'5D' ... still not confused ?

Gruss
H.

--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
Received on Tue Feb 02 1999 - 12:21:50 GMT

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