Newb question about code style

[Robert Dewar]

(sorry this is not threaded, using an internet cafe in Bangkok where all
I have is a junk telnet connection for email)

<<
Why the original *fixed* *width* ASCII character set has a character whose
width is not only different, but depends on where it is, is one of those
things. (Of course Knuth would question why have a character code for a
character with no glyph.)

nathan     
>>

I would guess that nathan has never seem a teletype machine :-)

By the way, there is nothing in the ASCII (really I suppose you mean the
ANSI standard commonly referred to as ASCII) standard that says this is 
a fixed width character set. Representation details like this are not part
of that standard. By the way null and DEL both have zero wdith :-)

(and if you don't know why DEL is alll bits on, you never used paper tape :-)