🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2178@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>
>	Here in New York, the first question the Citibank ATM's ask you is
>"What language should we speak?"  In my neighborhood, the alternatives are
>English and Espanol.  I would imagine other branches might have other
>choices.
>

Here in Montreal, the Bank of Commerce ATM's automatically select your
preferred language (English or French) when the credit card is inserted.
I was quite impressed when I discovered this, not having given the English
only prompts much thought in this illegal-in-English-only province, until
I happened to see someone in front of me getting their prompts in French.

Other banks ATM's I have noticed have bi-lingual prompts (no, not
Franglais, but a multi-line led display with simultaneous French and
English).

The banks, as do other institutions and businesses, have your preferred
language on file, because unless you specifically request otherwise, they
must communicate with you in French.

Ray Dunn.  ..philabs!micomvax!othervax!ray

Roy Smith, in 2178@phri, writes:

>I would guess, however, that most European languages would do OK
>without an extended character set.  I'm not saying it wouldn't be ugly, or
>that it wouldn't look funny, or that this would be acceptable for business
>letters.  I'm just saying that the meaning would be clear.  For an ATM,
>that's probably good enough.

Once upon a time, when computers were new and didn't have any funny
letters, a Swedish man refused to pay a bill.  He said that the
bill wasn't made out to him and that he had the right to his own
name.  The courts agreed.

Computers quickly learned the correct alphabet.

There are a number of examples where leaving the "diacritics" off a
word drastically changes its meaning.  For example, if you leave
the ~ off the name of the mayor of Denver, you are calling him
a small dog.

Martin Minow
decvax!minow

> phrom roje@phrj.VVCP Mon pheb  3 18:17:37 1986
> Artjcle 208 oph net.jnternat:
> 
> Becomjng more and more popvlar are Avtomatjc Teller Machjnes (ATM). These
> clever gjzmos allovv jeov to stjcc a credjt-card jnto a slot and get cash 24
> hovrs a daje.  JEov vvalc throvgh a phevv menvs, enter an avthentjcatjon
> code and the machjne spjts moneje at jeov and debjts jeovr banc accovnt.
> Oph covrse, jeov can do other tjepes oph transactjons as vvell.
> 
> Here jn Nevv JEorc, the phjrst qvestjon the Cjtjbanc ATM's asc jeov js
> "VVhat langvage shovld vve speac?"  Jn mje nejghborhood, the alternatjves
> are Engljsh and Espanol.  J vvovld jmagjne other branches mjght have other
> chojces.
> 
> Tvvo observatjons.  phjrst js the anthromorphjsm oph a machjne sajejng "vve
> speac".  Second js that jt does jvst phjne vvjthovt natjonal character sets.
> The "Espanol" versjon doesn't have anje accents (or a tjlde) and thjs
> doesn't seem to cavse anje conphvsjon.  J have no jdea vvhat the ATM's jn
> chjnatovvn do.
> 
> Granted, Spanjsh and Engljsh vse character sets vvhjch are 95% the same.  J
> vvovld gvess, hovvever, that most Evropean langvages vvovld do Oc vvjthovt
> an extended character set.  J'm not sajejng jt vvovldn't be vglje, or that
> jt vvovldn't looc phvnnje, or that thjs vvovld be acceptable phor bvsjness
> letters.  J'm jvst sajejng that the meanjng vvovld be clear.  phor an ATM,
> that's probablje good enovgh.
> 
> -- 
> Roje Smjth <allegra!phrj!roje>
> Sjestem Admjnjstrator, Pvbljc Health Research Jnstjtvte
> 455 phjrst Avenve, Nevv JEorc, NJE 10016

>>letters.  I'm just saying that the meaning would be clear.  For an ATM,
>>that's probably good enough.

I agree that it's perhaps unambiguous, but the use of all caps and of 1970
style displays is not very engaging.

While we are on the topic of diacritics, I'd like to know what people in
Europe do with electronic mail?  I usually leave out the accents when I send
e-mail in French, since the cases where ambiguous meanings result are few
and far between.  A native speaker usually has no problem with this.  Not
that I have the choice of not omitting them, unfortunately.  Terminals with
the capability to display French are not widespread, and even then they fail
to agree on a common standard...

The French researchers I've met seem at home on QWERTY keyboards, which leads
me to believe that they don't use the AZERTY layout.  Is this true? Does word
processing hardware use the AZERTY layout?

How many people in Europe actually use computer terminals with the proper
layout for their language?



-- 

Jean-Francois Lamy              
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto,         
Departement d'informatique et de recherche operationnelle,  U. de Montreal.

CSNet: lamy@toronto.csnet  UUCP: {utzoo,ihnp4,decwrl,uw-beaver}!utcsri!utai!lamy
EAN: lamy@iro.udem.cdn     ARPA: lamy%toronto.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.arpa

>
>While we are on the topic of diacritics, I'd like to know what people in
>Europe do with electronic mail?  I usually leave out the accents when I send
>e-mail in French, since the cases where ambiguous meanings result are few
>and far between.  A native speaker usually has no problem with this.  Not
>that I have the choice of not omitting them, unfortunately.  Terminals with
>the capability to display French are not widespread, and even then they fail
>to agree on a common standard...
>
>The French researchers I've met seem at home on QWERTY keyboards, which leads
>me to believe that they don't use the AZERTY layout.  Is this true? Does word
>processing hardware use the AZERTY layout?
>
Certainly the IBM display writer uses the French layout in France
and French speaking Switzerland (if you want to see a country with
real language standardisation problems - 4 languages).


Craig.

-- 
UUCP:	 ...!seismo!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!craig| Post: University of Lancaster,
DARPA:	 craig%lancs.comp@ucl-cs 	  |	  Department of Computing,
JANET:	 craig@uk.ac.lancs.comp		  |	  Bailrigg, Lancaster, UK.
Phone:	 +44 524 65201 Ext. 4146   	  |	  LA1 4YR
Project: Cosmos Distributed Operating Systems Research

In Denmark we use keyboards with the national chars {|}, and almost
anybody I know uses such a keyboard. I know some very engineer
oriented places where they use ASCII. 

Mail are done with these national chars, and when I communicate with
other Scandinavian people (in my language, they answer in theirs)
I also use the Danish Standard ISO 646 char set. And they use their
national version of ISO 646, that is I have never got an e-mail
from another Scandinavian country, where they did not use {|}.
So I recon national keybords are commonplace there too.

I know that this also counts for the commercial world, IBM sells
almost exclusively Danish keyboards here.

The situation may be different in other countries, eg. Germany.
In the Scandinavian countries {|} are considered genuine lettes,
where they in Germany just  are umlauts.