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diff --git a/docs/IBMPC-charsets.announce b/docs/IBMPC-charsets.announce new file mode 100644 index 00000000..1431cdf3 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/IBMPC-charsets.announce @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ + +Summary +======= +This document is primarily for people who will be using Lynx +on a remote UNIX or VMS system via an MS-DOS based terminal program. + + +General Information +=================== +Lynx comes with built-in translation tables to map the 8-bit character codes or +character entities coming in from an HTML document to their equivalent codes, +where possible, for various character sets. + +IMPORTANT: you should choose display character set in Lynx Options Menu +according to your font installed locally. Probably it would be cpXXX. Please +contact lynx-dev mailing list if you want any new codepage not listed there. + +Note that all points of the connection between the display at your end and Lynx +at the remote end must be 8-bit clean. If the high bit is being stripped at +any point in between, the only character set you can use (effectively) in Lynx +will be "7 bit approximations". More on that later. + + +MS-DOS character set weirdness +============================== +MS-DOS uses a bass-ackwards character set in which half the normal characters +have been replaced by pseudo-graphic line and box-drawing characters, and in +which almost all of the international characters are mapped to nonstandard +numbers. It also contains Greek letters. + +Further confusing matters, there is more than one MS-DOS character set. The +character sets are referred to as "codepages," each of which has a unique +number. IBM PCs and compatibles come with one hardware-based default codepage +and a keyboard to match. In the US market the hardware codepage is 437. PCs +destined for other regions of the world often have a different default codepage +which contains characters for other languages and keyboards. Under MS-DOS, one +can load different codepages into memory and use one of them instead of the +hardware default. + +If you are using Lynx through an MS-DOS based terminal program or telnet +client, you should use an appropriate DOS codepage in Lynx and you need not any +translation within terminal program (this is different from old-style behavior +and works better because of superior Lynx translation support). + +Check your display by accessing Martin Ramsch's ISO-8859-1 table +(iso8859-1.html in the Lynx distribution's test subdirectory). + +Ramsch's table describes each entity and shows examples of each. It should be +immediately obvious that you are either seeing what you are supposed to, or +you're not. If you see box and line-drawing characters and mismatched letters +and so on, you are likely displaying 7 bit data, not 8. Ensure that all points +of your connection are 8-bit clean: + + On any remote UNIX systems you must pass through, do + 'stty cs8 -istrip' or 'stty pass8'. 'stty -a' should list + your settings. + On any remote VMS systems, do 'set terminal /eightbit'. + Make sure your terminal program or telnet client is not filtering + 8-bit data. You may found the choice between "VT-100 strict" + and "VT-100 relaxed" emulation mode - use relaxed. + Note: Procomm for DOS has a confusing "Use 7 bit or 8 bit + ANSI" setting -- this has to do with ANSI sequences. If set to + 8 bit, some 8-bit character sequences, including those passed + by Lynx as well as those which are for your terminal type + (vt100, etc.) will be processed by Procomm as ANSI screen + control codes and will most likely result in a garbled display. + Set it to 7 bit. + If going through a dialup terminal server, you may have to set the + terminal server itself to pass 8 bit data. How to do this + varies with the make of the server, and in some cases only a + system admin in charge of the box will have the authorization + to do that. + SLIP or PPP connections should already be 8-bit clean. + |