From: scott@inferno.Kodak.COM (Kevin Scott) Subject: Re: 8 bit clean implies what? Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 18:30:16 GMT
For what it's worth, here is my OPINION on what 8-bit clean means:
1) you can use an 8-bit-clean text editor to edit non-text files
(such as .EXE files or .COM files or binary data files). This
would be of occasional use to hack in changes in any embedded text
in the file you are editing. I have been able to use the Turbo C
editor (ver 1.0) to do this type of thing (or perhaps it was a
Turbo Pascal editor; I forget; the timeframe was 1987 or so).
Of course, if you are editing a file that is not intended to be
text, the editor must not have any restriction on line length or
requirement that non-empty files end with a newline (sequence).
2) it is perfectly OK to represent non-printable characters as a
multicharacter sequence (such as ^A for ASCII code 1). What is
"printable" vs. "non-printable" is determined by the environment.
3) it is possible to enter any 8-bit character from the keyboard on
any IBM-PC compatible system. Just hold down Alt while typing the
desired character code on the numeric keypad.