BF>> One would have thought that at least the RCs of fidonet should BF>> have modern software, that can follow the FTSC standards. BF>> Obviously that's not the case... :-( JD> Where does it state anywhere that UTF 8 is a standard to be used? JD> There is no character set that is a complete standard.
There really is, but that character set is not acceptable for the whole Fidonet (it is acceptable for the majority, but that majority prefers another character set for reading and writing the FTN messages).
JD> That has since been relaxed to allow such characters as appear in JD> foreign languages for names at least.
Each echoarea uses some working language, which can be presented using some compatible character set. For example, mailing lists in Russian normally use KOI8-R (defined in the GOST 19768-74 standard, see also RFC 1489), and Fidonet messages in R50 (and around) normally use CP866.
Here the working language is English (see echoarea rules), so, although all my messages carry CHRS: CP866 kludge (according to FTS-5003.001), I use only lower half of it. This allows all other people to read my messages without bothering of any additional settings.
-- Alexey V. Vissarionov aka Gremlin from Kremlin gremlin.ru!gremlin; +vii-cmiii-ccxxix-lxxix-xlii
