String is ASCII or UTF-8?

[Emile van Sebille]

On 3/9/2010 1:36 PM Stef Mientki said...
> On 09-03-2010 18:36, Robert Kern wrote:

<snip>

>> No, you can't. ASCII strings only have characters in the range 0..127.
>> You could create Latin-1 (or any number of the 8-bit encodings out
>> there) strings with characters 0..255, yes, but not ASCII.
>>
> Probably, and according to wikipedia you're right.

I too looked at wikipedia, and it seems historically incomplete to me. 
In particular, I looked for 'high order ascii', which, when I was 
working with Basic Four in the '70's, is what they used.  Essentially, 
the high order bit was set for all characters to make 8A a line feed, 
etc.  Still the same 0..127 characters, but not really an extended ascii 
which is where wikipedia forwards you to.

I remember having to strap the eighth bit high when I reused the older 
line printers to get them to work.

Emile