<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">All, vaguely related to the interesting discussion of race - on which I tend to agree with Tom H - here’s something that’s been niggling away at my historical consciousness. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In 1993 Jeffrey Shapard published an intriguing article about the problems created by early standardization on ASCII 7- and 8-bit character codes for Asian and other non-alphabetic languages, which can have many thousands of characters (vs. the 256 representable in 8-bit ASCII). Shapard, “Islands in the (Data) Stream: Language, Character Codes, and Electronic Isolation in Japan,” in Linda Harasim, ed., <i class="">Global networks: Computers and international communication</i> (MIT Press Cambridge, MA., 1993).<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This problem carried over into the Web era. It was technically resolved by Unicode, but that standard has still not been universally adopted.<br class=""><br class=""><div class="">I’m wondering whether any historians have written about the history of character encoding, especially Unicode. What I’m curious about is not the technical history itself, but how the character-code problem affected/was affected by culture (“electronic isolation," as per Shapard? indigenous efforts, vs. IBM’s world-market goals? alternative pathways?). Do any of you know archive- or interview-based accounts that go into some of the cultural and social background and implications?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">NB, there was a 3-part history of IBM's efforts in Asia, especially kanji representations, in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Jan.-March 2005, by: Hensch, K.; Iqi, T.; Iwao, M.; Oda, A.; Takeshita. </div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There are also number of rather thorough and interesting histories by developer-protagonists and users, such as these:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">S. Searle, <a href="http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/characcodehist.html" class="">A Brief History of Character Codes in North America, Europe, and Asia</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">S. Searle, <a href="http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/unicoderevisited.html" class="">Unicode Revisited</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">J. Becker, <a href="http://www.unicode.org/history/unicode88.pdf" class="">Unicode 88</a> (1988 proposal from Xerox PARC)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Curious for any thoughts or references. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Paul</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div apple-content-edited="true" class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; border-spacing: 0px;"><div style="font-family: Arial; margin: 0px;" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">—————————————————</div><div style="font-family: Arial; margin: 0px;" class="">Paul N. 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