🚀 go-pugleaf

Standard character sets are a true minefield. The scoop is (I think as
follows):

8859.1  8-bit   X-Windows character set
8859.n  8-bit   A family of character sets, including greek, cyrillic
                etc.
6937.n  8-bit (with *some* two byte characters)
                Overall includes the same set of characters as the
                entire 8859.n family. 6937.1 & 6937.2 are (roughly)
                equivalent to T.61 (1984) excluding Kanji.
T.61 (84) 8-bit (some two byte character), 16-bit Kanji.
                This contains all western european characters and the
                Japanese Kanji set. Note that the Kanji set contains
                Cyrillic and *some* greek characters (but no terminal
                sigma for instance).
T.61 (88) 8-bit (some two byte characters), 16-bit Kanji, 8-bit Greek
                This is an enhancement to the 84 version by the
                addition of an 8-bit greek set. I think that Chinese 
                also got added.
JIS C 6226  16-bit
                This is known as Kanji.
JIS X 0208      This is the current name for JIS C 6226.

T61String (TeletexString) is subtly incompatible between 1984 and 1988
X.400 (but I have a defect report in about that). Note that in any
event, T61String (88) is a SUPERSET of 84 in that greek characters are
allowed. 

Also please note that the curly bracket characters {} *are* in
T61String, its is just that they are rather difficult to find being
located in the kanji portion. 

In answer to your question 'What are the respective merits?':

    As far as I am concerned, each character set for conveying data is
    sufficiently different, with different escape sequences etc, that
    you need to have a comprehensive solution to the character set 
    problem. Once you have this, it doesn't matter much which set you
    use provided you don't start losing characters.


     
--
Philip Gladstone      
Development Lab Europe 
Data General, Cambridge
England.  +44 223-67600