🚀 go-pugleaf

From: nike!ll-xn!mit-amt!mit-eddie!frog!jim (Jim Isaak)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 86 16:52:03 EDT

re: mod.std.unix note of Mark Crispin

Charles River has been shipping 8 bit "UNIX System V" Derived systems
for some 5-6 years, and with a substantial user base in Japan and
China.  It is important, significant, and very useful that the full
8 bits is carried throughout the file system.  Since terminals tend
to display what is input, and since a single site tends to use compatible
terminals the system does not need to be aware of what character sets
are being used -- if it's Kanji in its Kanji out .... as long as we
don't start sneaking in automatic conversions or stripping the 8th bit.

This alone does not speak to the uppercase/lower case point.  While it
is clear that we  (both as vendors and the standard) would be foolish to
not permit at least 8 bit characters, it might still make sense to do
a conversion of the "a-z" range to "A-Z" ... at least in theory; any
other abuse of the bit ranges would seem to be un-acceptable. 

So, the question comes down to "a-z" vs "A-Z"; the answers should look
forward to a much broader base of users, and to the systems of the
1990's.  From a system perspective, every thing I see  coming out
can support upper and lower case, so there is little incentive for
case-folding there.  Also, I think the broader range of users (not us
computer folk) are used to their local conventions for upper and lower
case, and would want to project these onto a given system.  That probably
means not folding the cases.

Volume-Number: Volume 7, Number 83