From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,52fd60a337c05842 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-06-26 19:46:42 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "David Thompson" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: Subject: lowercase, was Re: ada paper critic X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 02:46:42 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.89.150.90 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1025146002 12.89.150.90 (Thu, 27 Jun 2002 02:46:42 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 02:46:42 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:26734 Date: 2002-06-27T02:46:42+00:00 List-Id: Robert A Duff wrote : > "Marin David Condic" writes: > > ... And its really important to remember that as Ada was emerging into > > the light of day, there was still a lot of equipment out in the world that > > didn't support lower case. (Line printers being a common example.) > An example, but uppercase-only (monocase) terminals were AIR a (much) more common issue. And I never saw a dualcase keypunch, although there were "Hollerith" (card) codes defined for lowercase. It was not uncommon to (need to) enter escape sequences or commands in monocase input and thereby (be able) to get nice dualcase output on the printer. > But that can't explain it, because [ARM83] used lower-case boldface for > reserved words. > > Some of those printers *could* support boldface, by backspacing and > overprinting. ;-) > _Line_ printers can't backspace. Instead they print without advancing the paper, allowing overprint. In the "ASA" printer control associated with FORTRAN (but used other places also) where the first "column" of each line is a printer control character, '+' indicates overprint. Line printers using character-serial interfaces usually used CR, i.e. all first characters CR-no-LF all overlay characters CR LF. MDC went on to say: > .... (To this day, C fashion for things > created with #define is to use all caps.) _Most_ #define'd things, yes. (Not, for example, macro versions of library functions.) But of course this is precisely because nearly everything else in C is lowercase or mixed-mostly-lower, and so upper-only glaringly stands out. -- - David.Thompson 1 now at worldnet.att.net