[GreenKeys] News item for WC2XPF (fwd)

From: philip_at_awale.qc.ca <(philip_at_awale.qc.ca)>
Date: Fri Mar 15 15:55:49 2002

On 15-Mar-2002 John Lawson wrote:
> John F. Auwaerter, 76, of Park Ridge, was a pioneer in the
> telecommunications industry who was instrumental in the development of
> the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, or the ASCII
> computer language.

ARG! Why call ASCII an "computer langauge"?
 
> The code was the first 8-bit standard code that allowed characters, such
> as those found on a keyboard, to be represented by the same codes on
> many different kinds of computers.
Wasn't ASCII orignally 7-bit?

> "That was a major change in standardization for the telecommunications
> industry," said Sylvan Silberg, a fellow former research engineer at
> Teletype Corp. The code was developed in the 1960s through Mr.
> Auwaerter's involvement an Institute of Electrical Engineers committee,
> Silberg said.
>
> "He traveled all over the world defining what this code would represent.
> This is the code that is still used in PCs today," Silberg said.

Huh?! All over the world, but didn't seem to stray to a
non-english-speaking country. ASCII serves very poorly for those of us
who need accents.

-Philip
Received on Fri Mar 15 2002 - 15:55:49 GMT