Typing tildes and all that (Was: Bitter winter)

[justcarol67]

Carol earlier:
> > 
> > Hi, Steve. Thanks for all your trouble, but I post from the website, where there's no text editing window. (My browser is SeaMonkey, which is very much like the old Netscape. I hate, hate, hate IE!) If I need those characters, I just use the Insert menu in MS Word. Besides, I'd rather do without a tilde than go to the trouble of typing  ALT + 241!
> > 
> > Carol, who is probably both lazy and technologically challenged, :-)!
> >
> 
> 
> Steve:
> 
> I post from the website too, and the above special character were posted in that fashion.
> 
> There are some characters that I use a lot, so I sort of know them by heart. The Pound '£' and Euro '€', for example. As I said, I've got a small list tape at my computer for a quick reminder.
> 
> I can see not wanting to take the trouble for what amounts to one post per year or so, but the method is there if you should need it. 
> 
> Just make sure to use the Number Keypad on the Right, and to enter all four digits. For example the Pound Sign requires you to hold the ALT key down, then, on the Number Keypad, press -
> 
> ZERO ONE SIX THREE
<snip>
> 
> Keep in mind that the extended characters are not standardized between fonts. The old pure ASCII character set had lines and corners for the extended characters. Some fonts have foreign characters as the extended set. So, this works best with standard and very common fonts. 

Carol again:

Ah. I see the problem, I think. I keep NumLock turned off because I don't use the number keypad and find the green light annoying. However, I typed ALT + 241 and got ± (plus or minus) rather than n with a tilde.

But, really, it's too much trouble when I can much more easily use Word's Insert menu in the unlikely event that I need the character ñ (cut and pasted from Word).

Carol, trying to imagine what life was like for the first computer users who had to resort to ASCII!