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From: erik@sra.co.jp (Erik M. van der Poel)
To: ISO10646@jhuvm.bitnet, Unicode@sun.com, i18n@dkuug.dk,
        ietf-822@dimacs.rutgers.edu
Subject: alternative multilingual character encoding
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 92 20:46:32 +0900
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For those of you that have not already committed to Unicode, there is
a low-cost alternative (which may be desirable now that the US and
other countries are in a so-called recession). Individuals and
organizations that have already begun to implement Unicode may find it
desirable to continue to do so as it may be expensive to re-design and
re-implement systems now.

I will include the beginning of the document and the section titles
only in the interests of saving disk space. The document can be
obtained by ftp (login: "ftp", password: your email address) from:

	srawgw.sra.co.jp:pub/doc/net-char/doc/rfc-intl


* Internet Draft -- RFC-INTL



          Multilingual Character Encoding for Internet Messages


                       Erik M. van der Poel, SRA
                            January 31, 1992



* Status of this Document

This draft is being submitted to the mailing list at
net-char@sra.co.jp. After discussing changes and additions on this
list, the document will be updated and eventually forwarded to the
IETF Mail Extensions Working Group at ietf-822@dimacs.rutgers.edu, to
be considered as a proposal for an Internet Standard.  Distribution of
this draft is unlimited. Please send comments to net-char@sra.co.jp. 
To join (or quit) this list, please send your address and human name
to net-char-request@sra.co.jp.

SRA, Inc. of Tokyo, the author (Erik M. van der Poel), and other
persons and organizations named in this document will take no
responsibility for events that may happen as a result of reading
and/or implementing the specifications described in this document.
This document is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.


* Abstract

This document describes a multilingual character encoding for use in
Internet messages. This encoding is designed to be highly compatible
with existing electronic mail and network news handling software.


* Introduction
** Current Situation
*** ASCII Languages
*** Japanese
*** Latin Languages
*** Korean
*** Taiwanese
*** Hebrew
** Migration Issues
** Approach Taken
** Known Problems
** Alternatives Considered
*** Unicode 1.0
*** DIS 10646 1.2
*** Full ISO 2022
*** Compound Text
*** Extended UNIX Code (EUC)
*** Other Encodings
* Basic Encoding Methods
** ISO 2022-like Encoding
*** Informal Description of the Method
*** Known Problems with this Method
** Mnemonics
* Specific Encoding Methods
** ASCII Languages
** Latin-1 Languages
** Japanese
** Korean
** Taiwanese
** Hebrew
* Formal Specification of the Encoding
* MIME Headers
* Other MIME-Related Specifications
** Richtext
* Conformance
* Appendix - Communities Contacted
* Appendix - Processing Code
** Four-Octet Processing Code
** Character Uniqueness
* References
* Author's Address