🚀 go-pugleaf

I want to include a feature in several public domain systems where the
character set ISO 8859-1 is used for textes and identifiers (e.g. gopher).
People with old 7-bit-ASCII-only terminals have some problems reading 
textes with Latin 1 G1 characters, so it would be nice to be able to convert
these characters to similar ASCII characters. This is always an emergency
solution, but still much better than just stripping off bit 8 or displaying
a question mark.

Supposed there is no problem if the converted text is a few characters longer
than the original one. At the moment, I use the following table:


/* Conversion table for displaying the G1 set (0xa0-0xff) of
   ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1) with 7-bit ASCII characters.
   Suggestions for improvement are welcome!

   Markus Kuhn <mskuhn@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>     */

static char *iso2asc[96] = {
  " ","!","c","?","?","Y","|","?","\"","(c)","a","<<","?","-","(R)"," ",
  "?","+/-","2","3","'","mu","P",".",",","1","o",">>","1/4","1/2","3/4","?",
  "A","A","A","A","Ae","A","AE","C","E","E","E","E","I","I","I","I",
  "D","N","O","O","O","O","Oe","x","O","U","U","U","Ue","Y","P","ss",
  "a","a","a","a","ae","a","ae","c","e","e","e","e","i","i","i","i",
  "d","n","o","o","o","o","oe",":","o","u","u","u","ue","y","p","y"
};

or in a more readable format:

       !   c   ?   ?   Y   |   ?   " (c)   a  <<   ?   - (R)    
   ? +/-   2   3   '  mu   P   .   ,   1   o  >> 1/4 1/2 3/4   ?
   A   A   A   A  Ae   A  AE   C   E   E   E   E   I   I   I   I
   D   N   O   O   O   O  Oe   x   O   U   U   U  Ue   Y   P  ss
   a   a   a   a  ae   a  ae   c   e   e   e   e   i   i   i   i
   d   n   o   o   o   o  oe   :   o   u   u   u  ue   y   p   y

Could you experts please have a quick look at this table and tell me,
whether it is also acceptable outside Germany or if any improvements
are possible? I don't know much about the replacement characters used
by people in other languages if they are forced to use ASCII. E.g.
what about the characters ETH and THOR (d,D,p,P is just my guess)?

Are there even any national standards?

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Science student -=-=- University of Erlangen, Germany
Internet: mskuhn@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de  |  X.500 entry available
--- Wer, wie, was? Wieso, weshalb, warum? Wer nichts fragt bleibt dumm. ---