Writing software for old systems can sometimes be frustrating, but mostly it is SO nice. The target was usually quite simple and you don't have to deal with all the extra obstacles and choices that are obligatory today when running software on a bazillion different systems.
Not even having the option to deal with unicode can be such a breath of fresh air.
Even today, Japanese text online and elsewhere uses a variety of encodings. It's sometimes a frustrating experience. Compared to other languages, it is common to see non-Unicode encodings. In particular, Shift JIS (actually, the Windows-specific variant called Windows-932, which is incompatible with JIS X 0213:2004, called "Shift JIS 2004". Old enough Unix and Linux servers used EUC-JP, and Mac OS has its own encoding).
:) what is the correct one? It's different for each server, or even channel. IRC clients usually supported such custom settings. But then there was the matter of the other end of your screen - your terminal and maybe screen session I which it run.
I used to have an IRC config that was different for each server and sometimes channel, then displayed that in one shared encoding with other chat apos, then converted that on the fly with screen to match encoding of other apps.
Now I just had to make sure to convert encodings and line endings of all config files, any text file, or even source code and scripts...
Nowadays you just paste emojis in code and it's there, it works anyone, including the user. Huge change.
Yes. Today's messaging services require no skills whatsoever. Getting yelled at the first time you log in establishes pecking order and ensures people weigh their words.
Not even having the option to deal with unicode can be such a breath of fresh air.