From Joona Palaste
I wholeheartedly agree with Smith. I have read that computer companies are
developing a new on-screen character for the euro currency. Have they not
realised that over 99 per cent of computers these days use the ASCII character
set, which is not some kind of basket into which you can throw new characters,
but a fixed set of exactly 256 characters?
To introduce the euro character, one of the existing ones would have to be
changed. While I agree that not all of the existing characters are needed, the
whole idea of a change in the established standard is absurd. That would mean
making loads of updates in computer software (and possibly hardware as well),
amounting to almost as much fuss as the millennium bug problem.
So I suggest everyone take heed of Smith’s solution, to use the three-letter
acronym for the currency (which I believe is XEU).
Helsinki
