8-bit e-mail, again [was Re: "name" - was: evidence for "Urheimat"]

[Eduard Selleslagh]

[ Moderator survey at end of message -- please read ]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stefan Georg" <Georg at home.ivm.de>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 11:10 PM

> >SG>you probably mean /Chukchi/
> >.. thank you so much. But I hate the file://ch//. Just a personal tick.

> So do I. When will we be able to read and write hachek'ed c-s and s-s on
> e-mail ?

[Ed Selleslagh]

Right now (using the right encoding or character set), the moderator
permitting, and if all members' systems could interpret it - quod non.

It works with most of my correspondents (using PC's and Macs running the most
common e-mail programs, with the right settings).

Ed.

[ Moderator's response:
  MIME goes through all the time, unmolested.  I've been "permitting" it for
  months, even though I cannot read large portions of certain writers' posts.
  But it *must* be in MIME format, and that's not a matter of my "permitting"
  it or not:  The system on which the Indo-European and Nostratic mailing lists
  reside uses 7-bit characters packed 5 to a 36-bit word for ASCII data (like
  electronic mail) and there is no way around that--it is built into the hard-
  ware as well as the operating system.

  There was a time when I translated the MIME constructs to TeX, because there
  was at least one subscriber whose system treated 8-bit data specially, and
  showed him Chinese characters instead of Latin-1, but he no longer receives
  the IE list, so I have not bothered with that for some time now.

  I doubt that I am the only person reading these lists who does not use some
  form of personal computer to do so, but perhaps I am mistaken.  I think it
  may be time for a survey.

  Let's keep this simple:  If and only if you read the messages posted by the
  Indo-European list using some tool *other than* a personal computer, please
  reply to this message stating what you are using.  For example, I would send
  the following:

	Xterm window to Tops-20 system with MM mail program
	Xterm window to SunOS system with GNU Emacs editor

  Those using Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Communicator, etc., need not
  respond.

								Rich Alderson
  ]