The bookselling racket (was: Collecting Dictionaries)

on Fri, 06 Jan 2006 01:51:46 +0000, Jack Campin - bogus address stated:

Just so's y'all know, that symbol that I assume you are
seeing as a British Pound sign comes across on my mac as
a question mark. Until I reply, that is. Now, above,
it's three characters: =A3. [...]
Unless someone comes up with a complete revamp of usenet,
you're stuck with the ASCII set. Speaking of which, is
there no BritPound sign in ASCII?

xerlome's post contains three lines in the header which tell
newsreader programs more intelligent than yours to interpret
the =A3 as a pound sign. Those lines are

: Mime-Version: 1.0
: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
: Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Works fine with my newsreader (MT-NewsWatcher on MacOS 9.1).
I've never heard of the newsreader you're using (Direct Read
News 4.64) and it doesn't look like I'm missing much.

Ah - clearly I should go back to NewsWatcher. I've been
reading from my newsfeed's web pages (Newsguy) for a few
years, now, because I was bouncing around different states,
and couldn't always get my email and newsreading configured
in each place, without dialing long-distance. Now that I've
settled down, again, it shouldn't be a problem.

NewsWatcher is a much better program than the slap-dash
web interface my feed put together for us lazy types. I
hope they make it for OSX, though I could always run an
older version in "classic" (OSX's rough approximation of
OS-9).


I am impressed that xerlome managed to get such sensible
behaviour out of Google Groups. On the few occasions when
I've used it, it just made me want to bash my head through
the screen in despair.

I only go to Google Groups to look up stuff that's older
than newsguy holds on to - six weeks, I think it is. So I
don't generally have any need for it, but when I do go there
it works ok.


-Allison

xerlome wrote:

Thanks. Some years ago, i had a long list of commands, some way of
using shift, alt and/or ctrl + keyboard characters, which produced many
alternative characters, including £. (Can't find it.)

On Windows, alt + 0163 on the numeric keypad
produces £ . (Be sure num lock is on.)
Mac probably has an equivalent command
involving the command key.

Other high-bit ASCII characters can be produced
with similar alt + number combinations. You can
also produce regular keyboard characters this way
(as I've had to do when a regular alphabetic key
was sticking).

Cathy Krusberg

on Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:08:55 -0500, Cathy Krusberg stated:

xerlome wrote:

Thanks. Some years ago, i had a long list of commands, some way of
using shift, alt and/or ctrl + keyboard characters, which produced many
alternative characters, including £. (Can't find it.)

On Windows, alt + 0163 on the numeric keypad
produces £ . (Be sure num lock is on.)
Mac probably has an equivalent command
involving the command key.

And it shows up on my screen correctly, too.
Cool. On my mac, the correct keys appear to be
option + 3. Does the character £ look right to
you?

My experience has been that while a character
may come out right in some systems, it just
doesn't in all of them. But perhaps option+3
maps directly to the correct ASCII character.
I know the alt + number sets do.

Other high-bit ASCII characters can be produced
with similar alt + number combinations. You can
also produce regular keyboard characters this way
(as I've had to do when a regular alphabetic key
was sticking).

There must be a complete catalog of what the
keystrokes are for each character, somewhere on
the web; I used to have one, many years ago.


-Allison

Cathy Krusberg wrote:

On Windows, alt + 0163 on the numeric keypad
produces £ . (Be sure num lock is on.)

I get a backward L (ï½£) when I do that (whether the num lock is on or
off). What I usually do is open Microsoft Word and use the symbol table
on the insert tab. Copying the GBP symbol from there gives £.

At least, ｣ looks like a backward L and £ looks like the symbol for
GBP on *my* system. What do others see?

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

on 6 Jan 2006 06:02:08 -0800, Allison Turner- stated:

on Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:08:55 -0500, Cathy Krusberg stated:

xerlome wrote:

Thanks. Some years ago, i had a long list of commands, some way of
using shift, alt and/or ctrl + keyboard characters, which produced many
alternative characters, including �. (Can't find it.)

On Windows, alt + 0163 on the numeric keypad
produces � . (Be sure num lock is on.)
Mac probably has an equivalent command
involving the command key.

And it shows up on my screen correctly, too.
Cool. On my mac, the correct keys appear to be
option + 3. Does the character � look right to
you?

My experience has been that while a character
may come out right in some systems, it just
doesn't in all of them. But perhaps option+3
maps directly to the correct ASCII character.
I know the alt + number sets do.

Drat. Now they all look like question marks on
my screen, even though they were fine before I
posted. So just sending the ASCII character
through my mac system changed it. What a mess
of a system.


-at

On Windows, alt + 0163 on the numeric keypad produces £ . (Be
sure num lock is on.) Mac probably has an equivalent command
involving the command key.
And it shows up on my screen correctly, too. Cool. On my mac,
the correct keys appear to be option + 3. Does the character £
look right to you?

It does (as the Windows one did), but it's something of a fluke,
as your message didn't have a character encoding specified in the
header. If your newsreader knows how to encode and decode 8-bit
characters as ASCII you have a better chance that other people
will read them the same way as you.

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557

"John R. Yamamoto-Wilson" wrote in message
ups.com...


Cathy Krusberg wrote:

On Windows, alt + 0163 on the numeric keypad
produces £ . (Be sure num lock is on.)
__________________________________________________ __



I get a backward L (?) when I do that (whether the num lock is on or
off). What I usually do is open Microsoft Word and use the symbol table
on the insert tab. Copying the GBP symbol from there gives £.

At least, ? looks like a backward L

I see what you posted there, as a rectangle which is slightly higher than
its wide - ( a tall square)

and £ looks like the symbol for GBP on *my* system. What do others see?

I see what you posted there a traditional pound sign as well - the symbol
for GPB

However your post is showing as HTML, rather than plain text in OE 6
although the plaintext charset is given in the properties as utf-8.
h.t.h. ( joke )

I get the traditional pound sign when using [ALT] 0163.



michael adams

....




John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

"John R. Yamamoto-Wilson" wrote in message
ups.com...


Cathy Krusberg wrote:

On Windows, alt + 0163 on the numeric keypad
produces £ . (Be sure num lock is on.)
__________________________________________________ __



I get a backward L (?) when I do that (whether the num lock is on or
off). What I usually do is open Microsoft Word and use the symbol table
on the insert tab. Copying the GBP symbol from there gives £.

At least, ? looks like a backward L

I see what you posted there, as a rectangle which is slightly higher than
its wide - ( a tall square)

[ additional material - now reading my own reply here in OE6:the square
has changed to a question mark and the HTML has changed back to plain
text - which doesn't always happen when replying to a HTML original.
One might even suspect that the original question was a troll -
perish the thought.]

and £ looks like the symbol for GBP on *my* system. What do others see?

I see what you posted there a traditional pound sign as well - the symbol
for GPB

However your post is showing as HTML, rather than plain text in OE 6
although the plaintext charset is given in the properties as utf-8.
h.t.h. ( joke )

I get the traditional pound sign when using [ALT] 0163.



michael adams

....




John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 18:12:37 GMT, "my-wings"
wrote:

I don't know how many thrift stores you visit, but it's highly unlikely that
you will be able to find every title you want and need by dropping into the
local Goodwill on the lucky day your special book happens to be there.

That's why I like working in Bath so much. 15 shops on my regular
lunchtime round, and the locals are sufficiently literate that I'd
usually buy something in every shop and get a "find" twice a week 8-)

So do I _really_ want to take a job in Aztec West (soulless hellhole
office-park) ?

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 18:12:37 GMT, "my-wings"
wrote:

I don't know how many thrift stores you visit, but it's highly unlikely
that
you will be able to find every title you want and need by dropping into
the
local Goodwill on the lucky day your special book happens to be there.

That's why I like working in Bath so much. 15 shops on my regular
lunchtime round, and the locals are sufficiently literate that I'd
usually buy something in every shop and get a "find" twice a week 8-)

So do I _really_ want to take a job in Aztec West (soulless hellhole
office-park) ?

No.

My regular routes start either 45 or 30 miles away from home, and
offer up either 11 or 8 stops....totalling about 220 miles each. I
bought a Prius to save on gas for those trips, but it eats up tires
so fast (and cost so much more) that I'll never recoup that.
I might emigrate to Bath.

Kris