Who invented char sets?

[Jack2000]

That is a tricky one
i really could not find out who
 invented char sets?

[worker201]

Char sets are just a digital representation of type sets - a bunch of printer's stamps, like the letter plates on a typewriter.  There was a different set for each font used for printing, and a different set for each type size.  Which became the digital template for character sets.

If the wanted the historical version.  I can't tell you who created the first digital character set.  All I can tell you is that it wasn't a new idea.

[Pathos]

I don't think you can attribute char sets to any particular individual.

character coding would have started with punch cards or something...

[Aloone_Jonez]

That is a tricky one
i really could not find out who
 invented char sets?

Microsoft - I'm sure they've patented them.

[Calum]

microsoft invented everything you know. i think it says this in their EULA. or at least it reserves the right to retroactively have invented everything at any time in the future giving no notice of the change.

[muzzy]

I don't quite understand the question. Is the question, who invented the currently used charsets or who invented the concept of mapping a number to a symbol?

In case of the concept, it already exists in alphabet as well. There exists a rather intuitive mapping of 1,2,3 into A,B,C and so on. Even before the latin alphabet, there were phoenicians and so on. Thus, the concept of a "character map" goes way back, their use in computers is just a natural adaption of this.

Regarding the currently used charsets, you could check ASCII from wikipedia for a good starting place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii

Typically, charsets refer to the mapping of 8 bits into a character, and that's where the mess comes. ASCII only defines characters for 7 bits, so half of the space is free for others to use. As the result, zillions of different mappings exist for each nationality to have their own special characters. It's quite a mess.

Thankfully, there exists an ASCII compatible way to extend 8 bit tokens to represent larger than 8 bit symbol space, and it's called UTF-8. Multiple bytes are used to encode characters above the ascii range, and in theory any other characters sets would no longer be needed at all.

So, screw the whole charset crap and move to UTF-8. It's the wave of the future, unicode will take over the world!

[cymon]

And thankfully that's possible, because it has support for different alphabets.

[Calum]

in my opinion they should just have one huge international 16 bit convention with every conceivable letter in it and then there'd be no problem ever for anybody.

so essentially the idea of character mapping is an integral part of literate numeracy then?

[Pathos]

hmm, but what if a new mathematics is formed that adds a whole new range of characters?

I do agree that we have to move away from ascii and make a multi byte character set standard on all operating systems. Linux could do it, Windows probably couldn't (too may legacy apps).

[muzzy]

16 bits isn't enough in the long run IMO. I think 21 bits are currently used out of the 32bit unicode format, which is what utf-8 can provide with 4 octets. The 21 bit glyph space should be large enough, but utf-8 has space for extension if necessary.

Also, it's silly to say that windows couldn't do it because windows kernel has been fully unicode for years already. Also, linux has a lot of issues regarding multibyte character sequence because a lot of things starting from strlen() tend to break. All manually implemented string processing breaks, and there's a lot of that in most C applications. A lot of the same issue apply to windows, too, although there's a compatibility system which tries to make things a little bit transparent and it works fine a lot of the time.

Everything in windows is unicode (if we disregard win9x), and the winapi provides separate versions of all api functions for unicode and ascii strings. If you're a programmer, you've noticed CreateFileA vs CreateFileW and things like that. A and W stand for ASCII and widechar accordingly.

Basically, people just need to learn to write new applications using unicode strings. This would be significantly easier in a high level language that has some sort of string abstraction, so it's time to abandon C as the primary application programming language. Was about the time, too

[Calum]

16 bits isn't enough in the long run IMO. I think 21 bits are currently used out of the 32bit unicode format, which is what utf-8 can provide with 4 octets. The 21 bit glyph space should be large enough, but utf-8 has space for extension if necessary.

brilliant. that's exactly what's needed.

Also, it's silly to say that windows couldn't do it because windows kernel has been fully unicode for years already.

it's misleading right enough, but what he means i think is that a lot of windows programs that users have gopt used to depending on will have no intention of using the newer charsets - i wouldn't know if this is the case, or if the charset is back compatible with older 7 bit ascii one or not.

Also, linux has a lot of issues regarding multibyte character sequence because a lot of things starting from strlen() tend to break. All manually implemented string processing breaks, and there's a lot of that in most C applications. A lot of the same issue apply to windows, too, although there's a compatibility system which tries to make things a little bit transparent and it works fine a lot of the time.

hmm, although i am hesitant to imagine there is not some equivalent in linux systems doing the same job.

Everything in windows is unicode (if we disregard win9x),

something we cannot do, even though you always do so in your examples about windows. simply put windows 98 is the public face of windows for many users, and for many windows 2000 or xp users, their windows skills were all learnt on windows 98. Windows 98 has had a huge influence on computing for normal users, whether you admit it or not.

and the winapi provides separate versions of all api functions for unicode and ascii strings. If you're a programmer, you've noticed CreateFileA vs CreateFileW and things like that. A and W stand for ASCII and widechar accordingly.

sensible.

Basically, people just need to learn to write new applications using unicode strings. This would be significantly easier in a high level language that has some sort of string abstraction, so it's time to abandon C as the primary application programming language. Was about the time, too

has it not been superceded by C++ and all that VB crap?

[Jack2000]

Thanks for the info
there should really be a convention
and a NEW all in one "char set"

[muzzy]

Jack, unicode is this "all in one charset".

Calum, linux has issues starting from the shell. If you hit a multibyte key it will render one symbol, but backspacing it might erase n symbols - as it erases n bytes from the buffer as well...

Regarding win9x, I think it shouldn't be used anymore and even though it has influenced everyone's windows experiences, it's not the standard anymore. Win9x has its own unicode implementation, but iirc it was a little retarded. I didn't quite like it when I had a look at it earlier.

And even though C++ is becoming more and more widespread, people still use char* arrays instead of wchar_t*, and wstring doesn't tend to work in most compilers... It's just a pain in the ass to actually write any software that way. C# might remedy the situation, and VB.NET perhaps.

I believe the true turn of the tide will begin with mirc implements utf8 (and enables it by default). This would thrust the whole world, both windows and unix, into fully unicode aware situations. When communications become utf8 aware, so does everything else

[Aloone_Jonez]

Calum, linux has issues starting from the shell. If you hit a multibyte key it will render one symbol, but backspacing it might erase n symbols - as it erases n bytes from the buffer as well...

What about the Windows console?
From what I've gathered it only supports ASCII.

Regarding win9x, I think it shouldn't be used anymore and even though it has influenced everyone's windows experiences, it's not the standard anymore. Win9x has its own unicode implementation, but iirc it was a little retarded. I didn't quite like it when I had a look at it earlier.

Windows 9x was the most retarded OS ever, (you must agree with me on this) the problem is many Windows programmers are used to this so MS are afraid of making the new OS more secure is it'd break a lot of old software. (off topic I know but it had to  be said)

[Calum]

c# and vb.net are unlikely to rectify any problem which is found in C or C++ code...